


Valentine's Day Disaster

by kokarona



Series: The Swallowtail Series [2]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Romance, Fluff, Homophobia, Kakashi being an asshole, Love Triangles, Mentions of sex work, Sexism, Slow Burn, Transphobia, Unrequited Love, Valentine's Day, White Day, awkward misunderstandings, mentions of child abuse and bullying, overprotective relatives, secret marriages, this burn is so slow it's become oxidation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-13 08:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13566294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokarona/pseuds/kokarona
Summary: Shino was used to being ignored on Valentine's Day. She knew better than to expect anything special. But when her class holds a small holiday party, the kids take things too far, and even Shino gets caught up in drama.(Sequel to Breathe)





	1. Duel for Honor

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in between bigger projects, so I thought I'd write some fanfiction to get back into the swing of things. My last work was depressing as heck, so I thought I'd write a happier sequel. I'm doing it in third-person because pronouns make everything easier.
> 
> If you don't feel like reading the first fic, all you need to know is that:
> 
> 1) Every Aburame is intersex, but since Konoha isn't the most progressive place, the clan pretends to be made of all men.  
> 2) Mitsuki is the only person outside the Aburame clan who knows Shino is actually a woman. I wrote him as he is described in Mitsuki Gaiden, which is a lot more cautious than anime Mitsuki. He's also 100% less obsessed with Boruto.  
> 3) Orochimaru is a transgender lady, but this doesn't make her any less of a terrible parent. 
> 
> I was hoping to write the whole fic before Valentine's Day, but that is clearly not going to happen, so I'm splitting the story into sections. I'm not sure if this will be a 2 or 3 parter, because I don't have too solid of a plan. This story is basically for fun, so I reserve the right for it to be junk.

It was Valentines Day, and Shino's classroom smelled like tulips. Flowers normally didn't bloom in February, but thanks to her clan's heated nursery and some carefully-timed pollination, she coaxed them into blooming early. She'd put one vase on her desk and three more by the windows.

But flowers were only half the decoration. Her hive had pinned pink and white streamers to the ceiling. She'd put a homemade chocolate on each student's desk. Last but not least, she'd hung a giant Valentine's Day banner above the chalkboard.

Her students crowded through the door. Sarada and Metal hung their snow-drenched scarves on the wall. Inojin sniffed the tulips. "They're real!" he told Boruto.

Boruto laughed. "Wow, you really take holidays seriously, don't you Sensei?"

"I take everything seriously."

Shino had hated Valentines Day when she was younger. Her classmates often ignored her, but on that day she was outright avoided. No girl was brave enough to give the creepy Aburame anything, for fear that Shino would "get the wrong idea." Crushes got chocolates. Friends got chocolates. Even deskmates got chocolates. But Shino got nothing.

White Day wasn't any better. The boys only gave flowers to girls who had given them chocolates. They definitely didn't give flowers to other boys.

Even after joining Team 8, Shino never got any gifts. Kurenai said Valentines Day promoted sexist ideas about women and cooking, so she didn't make chocolate as a rule. Hinata made chocolates each year, but only for Naruto. Kiba and Akamaru were allergic to chocolate, so they avoided the village entirely. It was easy for Shino to pretend the holiday didn't exist.

That is, until she became a teacher. The moment February arrived, the Academy transformed into a craft center. The students wrote Valentines cards for their parents. The teachers decorated the lounge with paper hearts. Even the cafeteria workers dyed their desserts pink. The holiday was inescapable.

Shino decided if she had to celebrate Valentine's Day, then she'd celebrate it right. That's why Shino had put a candy on each child's desk. Even if a child didn't receive any chocolate from their classmates, they wouldn't go home empty-handed. They would know their teacher cared.

Shikadai scraped off the pink frosting heart on his chocolate. "Aren't the girls supposed to give out cutesy stuff like this?" he muttered.

Shino's stomach dipped. She'd gone too far with the frosting, hadn't she? She spent most days squashing any sign of femininity in herself, so she wasn't sure how to approach a "girl" activity like candy-making. Apparently she'd put too much effort in it.

Chocho snatched the chocolate from Shikadai's hand. She took a bite, then closed her eyes. "Mmm, Sensei, these are almost as good as Mom's!"

Shikadai turned in his seat. "Hey, I was going to eat that!"

Chocho lifted an eyebrow. "Really? It looked like you were picking at it."

"I was getting the frosting off! I don't want to eat anything pink."

"Some genius you are. The frosting is the best part!"

Relief settled into Shino's shoulders. "Class, we all know that you won't concentrate on lessons with candy under your seats, so why don't we do the exchanges now?"

The class cheered. Girls circled the room with boxes in their hands. Thankfully there was no Sasuke for the girls to fight over. Most gave candy to their friends, girls and boys alike. A few shyly approached their crushes. And then there was Hako.

Hako always dressed like she was going to a funeral: black dress, black gloves, black everything. Even her Valentines Day gift was wrapped in a black, lacy box. Despite her dreary aura, she strode across the room with determination.

"Metal!" Hako stood directly in front of the boy's desk. "Has anyone besides Shino-sensei given you chocolates yet?"

"Um…no?"

"Excellent. I'll give you mine then." She opened the box, presenting dark truffles inside.

"Eh?" Metal's face flushed red as the tulips. "Th-those are for me?"

"Yes." She closed the lid. "But only if you agree to be _my_ Valentine."

Shino covered her grin with a hand. If only Lee was here to see this. He'd cry tears of joy. Despite his romantic soul, poor Lee had never been popular with girls. But shy, serious Metal was considered a "hot catch" by his classmates. Shino had never seen the boy's mother, but Metal's sharp eyes and sleek hair likely came from her.

Shyness must also run in his mother's side of the family. Metal's mouth shifted to form words, but his voice wouldn't come out. Eventually he gave up on speaking. He pulled the box to his chest, then held a thumbs up in the air.

Hako smiled with all her teeth.

"Sensei?" Mitsuki raised his hand and waved it desperately. Shino approached his desk. Mitsuki had two chocolates, one from Shino and one wrapped in purple tissue paper. He'd scooted his chair back as far from the chocolates as possible. "Why did you and Sumire give me these?"

Shino glanced up at Sumire. The class representative walked between the rows, placing a chocolate on every desk. "She probably has the same motive I did: to make sure no one is ignored on Valentines Day."

Mitsuki's eyes darted around the room. "Is this a reward or a punishment?"

Shino mentally kicked herself. There wouldn’t have been any Valentine's Day in Orochimaru's lab of horrors. No wonder the boy was confused.

"Everything's fine, Mitsuki. This is a ritual Konoha does every year. We give each other chocolate to show our affection."

"Was I supposed to bring some?"

"No. Only girls…" Shino caught herself. "Only girls and teachers give out chocolates today. The boys will give back chocolates next month on White Day."

"Oh." Mitsuki picked up Shino's chocolate, then paused. "Should I eat it now?"

"If you want."

The boy sniffed the candy, then took a small bite. His eyebrows shot up. "Oh! This candy is sweet."

"Have you never tasted chocolate before?"

"The candy in the lab tasted like medicine," Mitsuki whispered. "Orochimaru only gave me some when she wanted me to sleep for a long time."

Shino wished, not for the first time, that she could track Orochimaru down. Her hive would suck the sannin's chakra dry. Anyone who hurt children deserved a slow death.         "This is my classroom, Mitsuki. Nobody's going to get hurt while I'm in charge." 

Karma chose that moment to prove Shino wrong.

"SUMIRE!" Hako picked up one of Sumire's chocolates from Metal's desk. She held the purple bag up as if it were contraband. "What is this?" she hissed.

Sumire smiled. "Don't worry, Hako! I didn't forget you! I just haven't made it to your desk yet-"

"I don't want your stupid chocolate!" Hako pointed to her own gift. "Did you not hear me say Metal is MY Valentine?"

The class circled around Metal's desk, hungry for drama. Sumire's eyes widened. "I guess, but…"

Metal covered his face. "I'm sorry! This is my fault! I took the candy without thinking…"

Hako patted the boy on the head. "Don't blame yourself. You were only being polite." Her face twisted in a scowl. "But Sumire took advantage of your kindness to try and seduce you!"

Sumire blushed all the way to her ears. "W-W-What?! I would never!"

Shino sighed. "Class, settle down. This doesn't have to be a fight."

Hako stepped between Metal and Sumire. "Metal is off limits!" Hako spiked the candy to the floor. She crushed Sumire's gift into a mess of chocolate and tissue paper. "The only chocolates he can eat are mine!"

"Hey, don't treat other people's gifts like that!" Sumire cried. She grabbed a replacement chocolate, slipped around Hako, and slapped the candy on Metal's desk. "Metal accepted my chocolate. It's not yours to throw away!"

"You take that chocolate off his desk right now!"

"Make me!"

The class began chanting. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Six Iruka cards says Hako wins!" Iwabe cried out. He tossed some trading cards on his desk.

Inojin answered with three cards of his own. "I'll bet you three Anko cards Sumire beats her."

Children began tossing cards into the pile. The chanting grew louder. Sumire and Hako crouched into sparring stances.

Shino took a deep breath. "ENOUGH!" She grabbed each girl by the collar and forced them apart. "My classroom is not a dueling arena. Or a gambling hall."

"Let's fight in the training center then!" Hako cried. The students cheered. Sparring was almost everyone's favorite class.

Shino shook her head. "The schedule this morning is for math. I already delayed my lesson to let you trade chocolate. I'm not pushing it back further for a sparring session."

The class groaned. Math was no one's favorite class.

Hako wriggled in Shino's grip. "Sensei, you can't expect me to pay attention to numbers when love is on the line!"

"I can, and you will. Talk it out during recess."

"Sensei, she called me a – a seductress." Sumire's eyes gleamed with cold fire. "Words alone won't defend my honor."

The other students nodded. The mood was getting mutinous. At this rate the class would head to the training center with or without Shino's permission.

Ironically, Boruto was the one to calm the class down. "It's okay, you two! I know a way you two can fight without sparring!" He turned to Shino. "They can duel so long as they aren't hitting each other, right?"

Shino paused. Boruto was a smart kid, but he had inherited Naruto's talent for trouble. "What are you suggesting?"

"Well, you know how in video games, you're playing as someone else? Your character is fighting, but the real you is pushing buttons, you know? So if they each control a fighter…"

"That's fine." Shino had never played video games herself, but she knew the general concept. "If you all behave in class, I'll even let you out a few minutes early to prepare. Deal?"

"Deal!" the kids cheered. The class retreated to their seats. Except for the occasional rustle of candy wrappers, the kids were all silent. Hako and Sumire glared at each across the room, but even they took notes. Shino wondered if she should bribe the kids like this more often.

When the lesson ended, Boruto led the class out the door. Shino breathed a sigh of relief. Boruto's schemes were a headache to deal with, but sometimes his stunts worked in her favor. Hopefully the girls could sort out their differences by the time recess ended.

Shino walked down the hall to the teachers' lounge. She grabbed her lunch box from the fridge. Teachers could eat at the cafeteria for free, but Shino found the meals too salty. It was easier to pack a salad from home.

"Hey! Shino!" Anko waved from across the room. She had claimed the couches usually reserved for parent-teacher meetings. "Check out my haul!"

Shino sat on the couch opposite Anko. The table between them held a plate of bright pink dango. The skewers were stacked to form a miniature pyramid. Each dumpling had been sprinkled with chocolate powder.

"My class made them for me! Homemade too!" She bit some dango off the stick and swallowed it whole. "Mmm! I should give all those munchkins A's."

Shino looked down at her salad. She reminded herself that she didn't like dango – it was too sticky and sweet. If her class had given her a plate like this, Shino couldn't have eaten it all without getting sick.

"They also made me this card. Cute, right?" She lifted a card smothered in glitter. Clumsy signatures decorated the inside.

Shino bit her tongue. Anko got dango and a card? That wasn't normal, right? Her class had to be exceptionally mature for their age.

"Your class is very thoughtful," Shino answered. She took a bite of salad. The lettuce tasted bitter.

Anko cackled. "Thoughtful my ass! They're just following the lesson plan." She waved her skewer in the air. "They had the Bribery and Blackmail Unit last week. And midterms are coming up…"

Shino looked up. "You wouldn't actually change their grades for dango, right?"

"Not the whole test, no. But I'll give them all full points on the bribery section. After all, the whole point of a test is to see how well they know the material."

Anko went on to explain her philosophy on bribery and seduction. She was telling Shino about one of her "adult" missions when the door behind them opened.

Mitsuki walked straight towards the teachers. He sat quietly on the floor next to Shino's feet.

Anko frowned. Despite being Orochimaru's former apprentice, she did not recognize the sannin's son. Shino had once offered to introduce Mitsuki to Anko, thinking the two could help each other heal. Mitsuki refused, afraid Anko would hate him for his blood. Shino thought his fear was unlikely, but children had a right to privacy, so she kept the secret to herself.

Anko leaned over the boy's face. "You okay, munchkin?"

Mitsuki offered Anko a stiff smile. "I have a headache."

The smile only confused her further. "Do you need to go to the nurse?"

His smile got stiffer.

"He's fine," said Shino. "Mitsuki has health issues, so sometimes he joins me in the teacher's lounge to rest."

Health issues were an understatement. The boy had been through a lifetimes' worth of trauma. Surgical experiments, psychological "training," solitary confinement…the list went on. It was a miracle the boy could function at all.

Shino told Mitsuki that if he ever felt unsafe during recess, he could join her in the teacher's lounge. Mitsuki took the offer at face value. He joined Shino in the lounge every other day.

On one hand, Shino was touched the child trusted her this much. She'd spent most of her life the shadows. She was the tactical support, the second-choice friend, the good-but-not-great teacher. To have someone rely on her and her alone…it made Shino feel important for once.

On the other hand, she couldn't help but worry. Most kids made life-long friends at the Academy. Shino knew firsthand that if you didn't master social skills here, catching up was an uphill climb. She didn't want to push Mitsuki away, but she didn't want him to become a loner either.

"Did the other kids include you in their game?" Shino asked.

Mitsuki nodded. "Iwabe asked me to help him with the bets, but I couldn't keep track of the cards, so Wasabi's doing it instead."

"Oh? Your class is setting up a gambling ring, Shino?" Anko teased. "You acted so scandalized by my class's dango bribe."

Shino huffed. "What they do during recess isn't my responsibility." She turned back to Mitsuki. "Although I am curious which girl won." 

"Sumire and Hako haven't started yet. They're still arming their fighters."

Shino looked at the clock. It had been over twenty minutes since she ended class. "How long does it take to pick a character in a video game?"

"Oh, they're not playing video games. They're making battle puppets."

Shino's stomach plummeted. "What?"

"Boruto lock-picked the door to the training armory, and the girls are choosing weapons for their fighters. Hako's taping a bunch of shuriken to her rabbit doll. Sumire doesn't know puppet jutsu, so she summoned some kind of monkey-tiger…"

The more Mitsuki spoke, the louder Shino's hive buzzed. After hearing a summon was loose in the school, the bugs droned so loud she could barely hear.

Anko coughed awkwardly. "You might want to go check on that."

Shino's wrist tingled as kikaichu bugs streamed out. The beetles smelled the kids' chakra to the south. Shino ran out of the teacher's lounge. The bugs guided her down the stairs and out the back door. Shino sprinted towards the domed training building across the field. Her bugs almost ripped the doors off their hinges in a hurry to let their master through.

The scene was worse than she feared. The children crowded along the railing overlooking the arena. Hako's supporters cheered her on from the left. Sumire's team stood on the right. Iwabe and Wasabi had set up a gambling station in between the teams. Iwabe stacked trading cards by type, while Wasabi recorded bets. Shino couldn't see the fighting from this angle, but it sounded bad.

"Class, I don't know what's going on here, but it needs to stop immediately!" Shino yelled.

The girls in the arena were too focused on the battle to hear Shino's order, but the rest of the class noticed. Wasabi covered the gambling area with a coat. Shikadai lay down and pretended to sleep.

Boruto blocked Shino at the door. He put on his most charming smile. "Hey Sensei! What are you doing here? Did you get lonely in the teacher's lounge?"

Shino crossed her arms. "You told me the girls would be playing a video game."

The boy let out a nervous laugh. "No, I said it would be _like_ a video game. It's not my fault you misunderstood."

"Of course it is. You had an idea you knew was against Academy rules, so you misrepresented the plan to trick me. It's possible to lie and tell the truth at the same time."

Boruto pouted. "Who told you we were here?"

Inojin pointed at the doorway. "The teacher's pet, most likely."

Shino turned around. Mitsuki stood behind her, panting from the run. "I'm not a pet!" He straightened his posture. "I'm a minion."

"More like a snitch!" Chocho yelled back.

Shino pushed past Boruto. The students scrambled out of her way. She reached the railing and looked down into the arena.

Hako stood atop a stone pillar. Her fingers fluttered like she was playing an invisible piano. Every tug of a string moved her puppet on the dirt floor below.

Hako's puppet normally looked like a three-foot-tall rabbit. The doll had pink fur and a toothy smile. But during its recess makeover, Hako had turned her bunny into a beast. She had tied kunai to its limbs like claws. Explosive tags hung on a belt around its torso. She'd even weaponized the ears with taped-on shuriken.

Sumire's summon didn't look any friendlier. It was a chimera of some sort, with the head of a monkey and the body of a tiger. The creature was the same size as the rabbit. It was a mystery how Sumire had made a contract with the chimera. The class wasn't supposed to learn about summoning until next semester.

Sumire called down orders from her own stone pillar. "Nue! Go for the ears!"

The chimera "Nue" obeyed without question. It swiped at the puppet's head. Stuffing trickled out of the gash. Since puppets can't feel, the rabbit wasted no time hitting back. A kunai slashed Nue's paw. Blue liquid bubbled out. The creature howled.

"Sumire! Hako! Stop! I don't want this!" Metal cried from the railing. His voice shook too much to sound commanding.

"This isn't about you anymore, Metal. It's a fight for honor!" Hako cried. The puppet tossed an explosive tag from its belt. Nue swatted it away.

"The fight's over." Shino's bugs bit through the puppet's strings. The bunny went limp. The hive swarmed the chimera, restraining it from attack. "Everyone in this room is getting detention after school today.

Sumire gasped. "Wait, Sensei-"

"You're actions are especially disappointing, Sumire. As class representative, it's your job to stop these schemes, not participate."

"Sensei, where's the explosive tag Hako threw just now?"

Hako spun in place. "I can't find it! I can't find it!"

Sarada pointed. "There! On the wall!"

Sure enough, the tag had attached to the arena wall. Hako must have drawn the seal wrong because sparks were jumping out of the paper. Ten feet above the explosive tag, Metal leaned against the railing.

The students all screamed at once.

"Metal, grab the tag and throw it outside!"

"Pour your water bottle on it!"

"No, get out of there Metal!"

Indecision rooted the boy to the floor. His gaze swiveled between the crowd and the tag. "Um…ummm…"

Shino reached Metal before the tag went off, but the blast caught them before she could jump away. They were flung into the air. Instinct made Shino roll underneath the Metal so her body could break his fall.

She landed in the back of the bleachers. Her head hit a steel bench. Something cracked. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears.

Her hive returned from the arena. The bugs propped Shino into a sitting position. Metal rolled out of her lap. The boy had a scratch on his cheek, but otherwise he looked fine. She could see his lips moving, but she only heard every few syllables. "…tha...so…sorry…"

She heard another crack. A jagged line split her vision in half. Her visor fell away from her skull and into her lap.

 _Crap._ Shino patted herself down. Her jacket and pants were charred but intact. Only her face was exposed. Still, the visor was going to cost several paychecks to repair. Optic filters weren't cheap.

Aburames, like their insects, could see ultraviolet light. Most bugs sought out ultraviolet light to find pollen-rich flowers. The kikaichu used it to track chakra, which shone ultraviolet when someone molded it into a jutsu.

The vision wasn't as helpful to Aburames. Ultraviolet light was difficult for the human brain to process. If Shino stared directly at ultraviolet light, the rest of her vision would lose focus. Even in the dark training hall, the chakra-powered lamps blazed like miniature suns, blurring everything in their vicinity.

"I…like…rice…pity," Metal murmured beside her.

It took some effort to focus her eyes on her student. "What?"

"I…I said I like your eyes. They're a pretty color."

It was a simple compliment, but it still caught her off guard. What did he mean, a pretty color? Lots of people had grey eyes. Shino's were a lighter grey than most, but they weren't anything remarkable.

She patted Metal on the head. "You don't have to butter me up, Metal. I know this wasn't your fault."

Shino looked out to survey the damage. Hako's explosive tag had taken out a full chunk of the bleachers. Rubble spilled into the arena. Shino couldn't see too clearly, but she guessed the blobs by the door were her students. She could hear Anko yelling at her class.

"-could have DIED! You had better believe your parents are hearing about this. We're gonna call them for an emergency meeting to figure out how badly we can punish you brats. I don't know how Shino puts up with you all…"

Shino groaned. It was bad enough she got caught in an honest-to-goodness explosion. Now she had to manage a crowd of angry ninja parents? This was the worst Valentine's Day ever.


	2. Enough Blame to Go Around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it seems like this will be a three-chapter story instead of a oneshot. I was honestly planning to finish this by March, but some family drama happened and I got delayed. Plus, the story is ending up significantly longer than expected. 
> 
> I'm not using any Japanese suffixes except sensei. The nuances of -san, -kun, and -sama can get complicated quickly, both in regard to social status and gender. So I'm copying the dub and using "Lady Tsunade" instead of "Tsunade-sama," "Lord Seventh" instead of "Nanadaime," and so on.
> 
> Thank you LucanaelDelSayan and Placeholder_Username for your comments! They mean a lot to me.

Needless to say, class was canceled for the rest of the day. Shino and Anko gave Iruka a report, and thankfully he didn't blame Shino in the slightest. "I know how wild those Uzumaki kids can get," he said with a laugh.

Shino texted her cousin Muta to please bring her old pair of sunglasses to the school. She rested in the nurse's station until he arrived. When he walked in the room, he tossed Shino her old glasses. She put them on, and her vision returned, though a bit browner than before.

Muta's nose was tipped red with frostbite. He was one of the few men in their clan who was able to grow facial hair. He refused to wear anything that covered his wispy mustache, even if the rest of his face had to suffer for it.

Muta huffed at the charred edges of Shino's jacket. "Starting a new fashion trend, are we?"

"I couldn't exactly take it off." Shino was wearing an undershirt, but it clung too tightly to her curves to wear by itself.

"That's why I took the liberty of raiding your closet." Muta opened a scroll hanging from his waist. He released the seal, and a neatly-folded jacket appeared above the paper. It was one of her nicer jackets, the kind she wore to clan ceremonies. The jacket was made from cream-white silk. It had silver beetles embroidered along the sleeves and polished buttons down the front.

Shino changed behind a curtain, then looked at herself in the mirror. Her jacket fit well without being too revealing. The rims of her glasses happened to match the buttons. The only issue was her hair. Without the visor propping it up, her topknot had melted into a messy bun.

Shino took out the ties. Her hair plopped to her shoulders, fanning out into a poof. She frowned. That was even messier than the bun.

Muta pulled back the curtain as Shino retied her hair. He gave a satisfied hum. "Much better. Now you're dressed like a proper lady instead of a burnt effigy."

Shino winced. "Don't joke like that outside the compound! What if someone heard you through the door?"

"There's nothing wrong with a little femininity." He pointed to the white earring his wife gave him. "I wear this stud on all my missions, and my teammates never question it."

Shino closed her eyes. Muta was a brilliant assassin, but he was ignorant of Konoha's social norms. The only people he spoke to outside of the clan were his two teammates and the Hokage. "Nobody's going to doubt your gender, Muta. You have a mustache."

She listened to her own voice as she spoke. It wasn't deep as Muta's or Kiba's, but it was still too wooden, too low. "I'd have a much harder time convincing people I'm a woman."

"So? Even if nobody believes you, it won't change who you are. What's the worst they could do?"

Shino sighed. How was someone so smart so oblivious?

"First of all, the Hokage could fire me from this job so I didn't 'corrupt' the children. I would never see my students again. I probably wouldn't see their parents either, which means losing virtually all my oldest friendships. The only place I could get a job would likely be the Crimson District-"

"You're being paranoid."

"I'm really not."

Back when Shino went on missions, there were two men who guarded the gates: Kotetsu and Izumo. They were powerful jonin, war heroes too. But a squad captain caught the men in an…intimate embrace during a mission. The Sixth Hokage publicly charged them with sexual deviancy and forced them to undergo "corrective therapy." Shino never saw them after that.

Rumor had it they moved to the Crimson District. That was where Konoha shuffled away its rejects: the homeless, the handicapped, the deviants. It was the kind of neighborhood where all the windows were broken and trash flooded the alleyways. Flea markets sprawled among dilapidated buildings, and pickpockets lurked in the shadows.

At least, that was what rumor said. Shino had never actually passed through Crimson District herself. Sometimes Shino felt she should witness how women like her lived when they couldn't hide. She felt like she ought to do something to help. But she could never bring herself to make the trip. She was scared to see how far she could fall.

Muta gave her shoulder a sympathetic pat. "Let me correct myself. You look like an upstanding yet completely sexless nobleperson, and your clothes no longer smell like toast."

Shino relaxed. "Thank you." The clock on the wall struck three. It was almost time for the parent teacher meeting. She grabbed her old, green jacket off its hook. Ash rained off the fringes. "I don't suppose we could fix this before tomorrow's classes…"

Muta snatched it from her hands. "No. This jacket is going to the trash where it belongs." He sealed the garment into his scroll. "As an Aburame, it would be careless of me to let our clan heir be seen in damaged clothing."

"But you'll let me hold a disciplinary meeting with two dozen angry parents."

"It's not my fault you chose such a dangerous profession."

#

The principal's office was too small to hold the entire PTA, so the meeting was held in Shino's classroom. The parents trickled into the room as their busy schedules allowed. The punctual adults meandered the room as they waited for their busier peers. Some admired the art projects on the walls. Others gossiped in the corners.

Almost all the attendees were women. In Konoha, there was an unspoken rule that parenting was a mother's duty. Fathers might attend a graduation ceremony or train a child in clan techniques, but they rarely took part in the day-to-day responsibilities of childrearing. Most kunoichi considered themselves lucky if their husbands cooked for the children while they were away on a mission.

Shino thought this set-up was silly at best. When her mother died, her father took over without any trouble. He cooked, cleaned, and walked Shino to school, all while leading a clan. Shino couldn't help but judge her male friends who couldn't bother attending a brief parent-teacher meeting. Naruto especially had no excuse, since he could literally be in two places at once.

The only father who had deigned to show up was Rock Lee. Then again, he was a single father, so he had little choice. Metal's mother had died during childbirth. Tsunade had tried her best to save the woman, but even her expertise couldn't save a doomed pregnancy.

Lee was devastated. He stopped eating. He stopped smiling. He even stopped training.

Everyone had pitched in to help Lee until he recovered. Hinata and Chouji cooked Lee food. Ino and Neji dragged Lee to therapy. Shino and Tenten took shifts babysitting Metal. But it wasn't until Gai gave him "A Long Talk About Youth" that Lee returned to his old, smiling self.

After that talk, Lee threw all his effort into being a father. He kept Metal's crib by his bed for late-night feedings. He pushed Metal's stroller on morning jogs. He attended every school event, every birthday party, and more. He was one of the most involved parents in Konoha, so Shino had the upmost respect for him.

At the moment, Lee was talking with Sakura and Hinata in a nearby corner. An orange scarf wrapped around his neck, and snowboots protected his feet. He had come in with a light jacket, but when he took it off, Shino saw he was wearing his normal jumpsuit, ripped sleeves and all.

"…so we had a long talk about fire safety, and Metal said he understood, but I still wonder if I should buy him a flame-resistant jumpsuit…"

At this point, Shino would have expected Sakura to launch into a lecture about first aid. But all her attention was on Lee's body instead of his words. Her eyes went from his arms to his shoulders to his waist, then back to the arms…She examined his muscles as if he were a dissection subject instead of a colleague. Shino wondered what Sakura found so concerning.

Then Shino noticed the pink tinge on Sakura's cheeks. The woman's shy, fidgeting stance. The way she nibbled on her lip.

Oh. It seemed Metal wasn't the only one getting special attention today.

Sakura's attraction was ironic to say the least. Lee had pined after her during his entire adolescence. Now, decades later, she was finally acknowledging him as a man, and Lee was oblivious.

Shino couldn't blame Sakura for being distracted. It had been ten years since Sasuke had abandoned her and infant Sarada. Sakura must have been lonely, waiting all those years for the love of her life to return. But even she must have realized by now that Sasuke would never marry her. She'd gotten one chance to give him a male heir; instead Sakura had given birth to a daughter.

Compared to Sasuke, Lee must have looked like a muscle-bound angel. He wasn't as handsome as Sasuke - nobody was - but he was an honorable man and a doting father. Plus, "pretty boys" weren't as popular as they used to be. In an age of fast food and office work, many men had soft bodies and delicate faces. Hard muscles and square jaws were the rarity now, and thus very fashionable.

Shino was pondering the situation when Lee caught her staring. A grin spread across his face. He said goodbye to the mothers, then rushed over to Shino, arms spread out for a hug.

She took a step back. If Lee gave her one of his famous hugs, he would definitely notice a certain softness in her chest. She put her arms out to block his approach

Lee saw her tension and transitioned from a hug to a handshake. He smashed Shino's left hand in an iron grip. The bugs inside her palm were almost crushed, but they fled through her wrist just in time.

"Shino! I cannot thank you enough for saving my precious son!" he cried. His voice was loud enough to attract stares from the other parents. "I am low on money right now, but after my next mission, I will definitely pay to repair the training arena-"

"You are the last person who should be paying for that," Shino told him. "The accident happened because Hako Kuroi made a faulty exploding tag. Metal was the victim, not the instigator."

An airy voice interrupted their conversation. "Are you blaming MY daughter for this, Aburame-sensei?"

Lady Kuroi leaned on one of the front desks. Like her daughter, Lady Kuroi wore a midnight black dress. Her arms, shoulders, and cleavage were visible through cut-outs of lace. Bulky onyx earrings dangled from her ears.

"It can't say I'm surprised," she sighed. "The wealthy are always the first scapegoats."

The other parents stopped talking and turned towards the conversation. Shino felt the weight of everyone's stares. She stood up to her full height. Keeping her voice as neutral as possible, she replied, "I am not scapegoating anyone, Lady Kuroi. I am simply stating facts."

Lady Kuroi's teeth gleamed all the whiter against her black lipstick. "Oh really? Well here's a fact for the insurance companies to mull over: My Hako says you left the class unsupervised for half an hour. Another child had to find you and ask for help."

Sakura frowned. "Is that true, Shino?"

"I'm sure he had a good reason," Hinata murmured.

The tension in the room grew thicker. When Lady Kuroi framed the situation like that, Shino sounded positively negligent. She grit her teeth. "It was their recess period. That's the only time teachers are free to eat-"

"So you can't eat and watch the kids at the same time?"

"Teachers aren't required to work during their lunch breaks."

"Not required, no, but given how many incidents have occurred this year, and how high tuition is, I would have thought you'd go beyond what is _required_ to ensure our children's safety." Lady Kuroi turned to the other parents. "This is why you don't send men to do a mother's job, am I right ladies?" A few women tittered in the back.

Shino's anger got the better of her. "Most students at this Academy are able to entertain themselves for thirty minutes without blowing each other's legs off."

Lady Kuroi's dark eyes gleamed. "Are you calling us bad mothers?"

Shino's stomach plummeted. She'd walked into a verbal landmine. With that simple word, "us," Lady Kuroi had drawn the battle line between Shino and the rest of the class. And it would be an ugly battle too. In a PTA meeting, you could call someone a liar, a drunk, even an ugly hag, but "bad mother" was an unforgivable slur.

Before Shino could breathe a word, the crowd drowned her out with yelling.  
"What would you know about parenting, Aburame? You don't have kids!"

"You think just because you have a fancy teaching degree-"

"MY boy wasn't involved, he was just watching."

Lady Kuroi rode the crest of anger to go for the kill. "It's ridiculous for you to drag everyone from our busy lives and blame us for your failures. I think you owe us mothers an apology…"

Shino's back bumped against the chalkboard. The hive buzzed under her skin, begging to be let out so it could protect her. Shino clenched her muscles, keeping the bugs inside. If this were a battlefield, she could subdue the crowd in a dozen ways. But talking had never been her strong suit. In a war of words, Shino was outmatched and overpowered. At this rate, she might lose her job.

Lee stepped between Shino and the crowd. His voice was low enough to cut through the yelling. "Excuse me, Lady Kuroi, but my child was the one who got injured, not yours."

Lady Kuroi paused, then gave Lee a condescending smile. "Oh Lee, you know you're an honorary mother to us. But yes, Aburame-sensei should apologize to you first."

"I am waiting for an apology, but I'm not expecting it from Shino." He showed her a stiff smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'd much rather hear it from the parent whose daughter almost sent my boy to the hospital."

Silence took over the room. Just like that, the tide of rage receded. Doubt bubbled up in the crowd.

"Lee's got a point. It would be awfully petty to punish the teacher who saved Metal's life-"

"And where's this 'us' talk coming from? Your daughter was the one who caused all the damage!"

"Yeah, don't go calling _us_ bad mothers."

Lady Kuroi grew pale. "Why are you all ganging up on me? That Sumire girl was fighting too. Why isn't her mother apologizing?"

Shino stepped away from the wall. "Sumire is an orphan, Lady Kuroi."

The woman flinched. She looked around the room for another scapegoat. "Well…what about Lady Hyuuga? Her boy was the mastermind. If anyone should be apologizing, it's her."

Hinata gasped. Sakura, Ino, and Temari clustered around their friend. "Lady Kuroi, how could you!" Ino cried. "It's bad enough to yell at Shino, now you're picking on Hinata?"

Temari glowered at the woman in black. "Insulting the Hokage's wife isn't a smart way to get out of paying damages."

Shino couldn't deny, she got great pleasure from seeing Lady Kuroi step into a verbal landmine of her own.

Hinata dabbed her watery eyes with a sleeve. "She's right though. Boruto's always the one behind these incidents. He's a sweet boy, but he doesn't respect adults at all." She sniffed. "I'm sorry Shino. I'm sorry Lee. If I were a better mother, Boruto wouldn’t have caused you both so much trouble…" She put her face in her hands and sobbed.

The crowd immediately surrounded Hinata, going into full comfort mode.

"Don't say that, Lady Hinata! You're an amazing mother."

"It's not your fault. Boys will be boys…"

Even Lady Kuroi was jostling among the other parents, yelling, "Don't cry, sweetheart! I didn't mean it."

Lee and Shino stood outside the mob of unconditional love. Shino coughed awkwardly. "Thank you for defending me back there. I appreciate it." This was an understatement. She couldn't have been more grateful if Lee had saved her from a meteor strike.

Lee gave Shino his traditional "nice guy" pose. "Of course! My own springtime of youth was full of adventures like this. Even the best teacher cannot protect their students from every mistake." He grabbed his chin and stared thoughtfully at the floor. "I do wonder what the children were fighting over though."

"Metal didn't tell you?"

Lee shook his head.

"The girls were fighting over who could give Metal their Valentine's Day chocolate."

"WHAT?"

His shout attracted the attention of the crowd. They turned once more to Shino.

"Hako had given Metal chocolate to claim him as her Valentine," Shino explained. "When Sumire gave him chocolate too, Hako got jealous and challenged her to a duel."

Tears bubbled up in Lee's eyes. His black irises became fish in two quickly filling bowls. "So my son - _sniff -_ my baby boy's found his first love?" The fish bowls overflowed. Tears dribbled down into his smile.

Lady Kuroi looked at the blubbering, spandex-clad man before her. Her face grew pale. "You're joking, aren't you, Aburame-sensei? I mean, green isn't really Hako's color…"

Shino put on the straightest face she could muster. "I don't joke. Valentine's Day is taken very seriously here."

Lee turned and gave Lady Kuroi a spine-cracking hug. "This is wonderful! Our children have decided to spend their youth's first love together!" He released her, suddenly serious. "But as parents, we may have to lay down some ground rules first. I know children grow up fast these days, but I think it's important that they save their first kiss for the third date, if not later…"

#

It took two hours of deliberation, some legal paperwork delivered by Anko, and a call to Principal Iruka's personal phone, but Shino and the parents finally came to an arrangement. The students would pay for repairs by selling flowers outside of class. Ino volunteered to supply the flowers.

Once the meeting was done, parents trickled out of the classroom. Rather than subject herself to small talk, Shino busied herself with taking down the decorative streamers. Her bugs were happy to be let out and do something useful.

"Do you need help?" asked Lee. Shino nearly jumped at the sound. Since when did Lee get _sneaky_?

In the past, Shino would have said no, but she was wise enough now to avoid taking such questions literally. "If you want to help, you could put these streamers in the recycling bin."

"Consider it done!" Her bugs dropped some streamers in Lee's outreached hands. He accepted them without flinching.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it! You put so much effort to decorate my son's classroom." He dropped the streamers in the recycling bin. "It's only fair I help you take everything down."

His elbow bumped into one of the vases in the windows. The tulips jiggled inside. "Oh! And you even brought flowers! I didn't know tulips grew in winter." He stroked the petals of a pink bloom. "Did Hinata give you these?"

Shino was confused. What made Lee think Hinata gave her the flowers? "My clan grew them in our nursery. I pollinated them early so they would bloom in time."

"I see. What did Hinata give you for Valentine's Day then?"

She paused. "Nothing. Hinata is married. It wouldn't be appropriate."

Lee's eyes grew owlishly wide. "But Tenten, Neji, and I still give each other gifts. Ritsu never minded."

It took Shino a moment to match the name Ritsu to Lee's dead wife. She'd never spoken with the woman, but she still felt guilty for forgetting Ritsu's name.

Lee continued. "Gifts don't have to be romantic. They can show appreciation, or build a friendship. We shouldn't stop celebrating Valentine's Day simply because we have romantic partners. If anything, gifts are all the more important to reaffirm our bonds!"

Shino was taken aback. She knew Lee was passionate, but he seemed more excited about Valentine's Day than the children.

"That's a nice thought, but you can't stop something that never began," she said.

"What?"

"My team never exchanged gifts for Valentine's Day or White Day. Kiba was allergic to chocolate, and Hinata only made sweets for Naruto."

Lee frowned. "You didn't even trade cards at school?"

Shino scoffed. "Nobody gave me gifts in the Academy. My classmates were too afraid to get near me."

"So…" Lee's eyes began watering again. "So you've never gotten anything for Valentine's Day?" He sniffed. "That's so sad! I was shunned in Academy too, but even I got a card from the teacher."

Shino winced. Her past sounded pathetic now that she said it out loud. "It's not a big deal. Aburames have never been a popular clan. I knew better than to expect anything."

"It is a big deal!" Lee cried. He wiped his eyes. "Nobody deserves to be ignored like that."

"It's fine," she insisted. An errant beetle crawled onto her hand. She nudged it back under her sleeve. "I'm lucky to have friends at all. People outside the clan weren't willing to even be on a team with us until my grandfather's generation, let alone socialize."

"It's not fine!" He clenched a determined fist. "I'll make sure you get a Valentine's Day gift-"

"The day's already over, Lee."

"A White Day gift then! I swear on springtime and youth, you'll get one!"

Shino found herself leaning back from his fiery aura. On one hand, she was touched by how invested Lee was in her happiness. On the other hand, she dreaded to think how Lee would try to fill his promise.

She imagined him going from classroom to classroom, begging someone to please give poor lonely Shino a card for White Day. Nobody would, of course, because grown men didn't give White Day cards to their coworkers, no matter how friendly they were. Worse, Lee could go to Kiba and guilt-trip him into giving Shino a gift.

What would Kiba even give her? He still thought Shino was a boy, so flowers were obviously out. Kiba wouldn't be caught dead giving anyone a card. A good luck charm, maybe? Like the bear claw Shino bought him for his birthday?

She imagined Kiba and herself wearing matching necklaces. Hers would be hidden under her jacket, tapping softly against her breastbone, while its twin would be nestled in Kiba's thick chest hair-

Her hive shuddered. Shino shook the thought out of her head. She would _not_ let her mind go down that road. Kiba had a girlfriend. An annoying, vapid girlfriend who didn't deserve him, but a girlfriend nonetheless.

Even if Kiba was still single, he wouldn't appreciate having a starring role in his best friend's fantasies. Shino's brain and conscience both agreed on this. Unfortunately, her hormones had yet to fall in line.

She took a deep breath. "Lee, you don't have to-"

"I will! And if I fail, I will walk five laps around Konoha on my hands."

"That really isn't necessary." Konoha had grown five-fold since the war. Even Lee would have a hard time making laps around it.

"You doubt my conviction?" Lee smiled. "Ten laps then."

"That doesn't make sense. If I doubt you, shouldn't you promise something smaller?"

The smile grew wider. "Fifteen laps."

At this rate, Lee was going to handstand himself to exhaustion. "Fine. Promise accepted." Chances were he'd forget the promise in a week. Shino was rather good at being forgotten.

Lee beamed. "See? That wasn't so hard."

Shino turned away. "Let's just finish cleaning up." Her hive plucked the rest of the streamers from the walls. Then the bugs brought down the Valentine's Day banner. They were about to drop it in the recycling bin when Lee stopped them.

"Wait. You can reuse that."

Shino paused. "I know. That's why I'm putting it in the recycling."

Lee shook his head. "No, I mean you should put it in storage." He pointed to the stencil-drawn letters. "You made this, right? It would be a shame to put all this effort into a banner you only used once."

Shino sighed. Lee was truly odd sometimes. He made every little thing out to be so… _important_. In some ways, he was even more serious than her. "Fine. We can roll it up and leave it on that shelf."

While Lee did that, Shino quickly watered the flowers with a spray bottle. Tulips were sensitive – you couldn't water them too much or they would rot. Flowers like this only needed the bare minimum of attention.

"Thanks again for your help," she told Lee.

Lee crossed the room and slipped on his coat. His hands popped through the sleeves. "I told you, no need to thank me. I-"

Lee paused, then reached into his jacket's pocket. His phone's case was the same neon green as his jumpsuit. It vibrated in his hand.

He poked the screen and frowned. "Oh. It looks like my mother-in-law has been calling me…for a while." He laughed nervously. "Sorry, I need to take this."

He turned around to take the call, as if that somehow made him harder to hear. "Tohru? Yes, I'm sorry. I was in a parent-teacher meeting…Metal's fine. Tenten's looking after him…Well, I was helping Shino-sensei clean up…" His back muscles tensed. "Yes, Shino's here, but…Tohru, I'm sure Shino is very tired. I don't think…Okay, okay."

Lee held his phone out to Shino. In an apologetic tone, he said, "She wants to talk to you."

Shino tensed. If Lee was getting steamrolled by this, his mother-in-law must be a terrifying woman. She grabbed the phone. "Hello. This is Shino Aburame speaking."

"Metal's teacher is an Aburame? Interesting." The woman spoke in a breathy tone that was hard to hear. "I'm Metal's grandmother. Nazari clan. Are you free tonight?"

"Pardon?"

The woman sighed. She raised her voice, which grew raspier with volume. "I need to speak with you. Tonight, preferably, but a weekend meeting can be arranged if you have clan business."

Shino grit her teeth. It had already been such a long day. She had hoped to go home and relax. "May I ask why you want to meet in person?"

" _Tsk._ It's not obvious? My only grandson nearly died today."

She winced. "Yes, of course. I am very sorry-"

"I don't want excuses. I want a conversation. Can you meet me tonight or not?"

"You don't have to," Lee whispered.

"Tonight is fine."

Lady Nazari sounded pleased. "Good. I have a dinner meeting until 6:30, so you can come over at 7. Lee will show you the way."

The woman hung up without further explanation. Shino handed the phone back.

"Are you sure about this?" asked Lee. "You've had a long day, and Metal said you hit your head…"

"It's fine. I'd rather get a lecture over with now than have it hanging over me." Shino glanced at the clock. It was 5:30 now. It seemed like she and Lee had 90 minutes to kill.

"Right, right. I see." Lee shifted on his feet. He looked even less enthusiastic about seeing his mother-in-law than Shino was. "Do you want to get something to eat first?" he asked. "I know a café near here that sells amazing protein shakes."

"A café sounds good." Shino hadn't had eaten much of her lunch before Mitsuki interrupted her. She and her bugs were starving.

The two of them walked out of the classroom. "How long does it take to get to your mother-in-law's home?"

"Not long! If we walk from the cafe, it will only take thirty minutes."

The two of them stepped outside. Cold wind nipped at Shino's nose. Ice crunched under her feet. "I'd prefer to take the train."

"Oh. Um…Tohru doesn't live near any stations. It would be quicker to go on foot."

Shino frowned. Konoha's train network surrounded the whole city. "Where does your mother-in-law live where it takes longer to go by train than foot?"

"Well…" Lee let out an awkward laugh. "Have you ever heard of the Crimson District?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers:
> 
> *The Crimson District is based vaguely on the black market district from the Boruto fillers. I know the description sounds problematic, but you'll just have to trust where I'm going with this.
> 
> *Yes, Neji is alive in this AU. I don't know if he'll show up in the plot, but he is alive and running the Hyuuga clan.
> 
> *Apologies to any sasusaku fans. Please remember this is an AU. You don't need to tell me how the "real" Sasuke married Sakura and loves his family. If it makes you feel better, know this isn't the "real" Sasuke, this is AU Sasuke.


	3. Too Many Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dinner and many questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say this was going to be the last chapter? I was wrong. I have no clue how long this story is going to be. Even now, I'm telling myself that the next chapter will definitely be the last, but I've told myself that 3 times by now, so I don't even believe myself anymore. This was seriously supposed to be a SHORT story...
> 
> On the plus side, for those of you who wanted shipping, this chapter is basically nonstop fluff. The next one will be more plot, and we will finally get to meet Lee's mother-in-law.

"The Crimson District?" Shino echoed. Was Lee talking about the same place Shino was thinking of? The so-called 'black market borough?' The 'suburb of sexual deviancy?'

Shino had a hard time imagining Lee ever setting foot in there. She was surprised he even knew the Crimson District. And Lady Nazari sounded far too haughty to be a resident of such a place. A woman from a clan as rich as the Nazari would normally live in the Amber or Jade district.

Then again, if Lee met his wife in the Crimson District, it would explain some things. Like why he had eloped with Ritsu rather than having a public wedding. Or why Lee had relied on his friends for babysitting instead of his wife's family. Or why he seemed so reluctant to introduce Shino to his mother-in-law.

Lee must have sensed Shino's concern, because he began waving his hands frantically in the air. "The district isn't as bad as the rumors say! The businesses there aren't really, um, _licensed_ the way most are, but the people aren't dangerous. Well, not any more dangerous than the average retired ninja, which I guess is pretty dangerous, but-"

As Lee rambled on, Shino took what was intended to be a deep, calming breath. Cold air seared the inside of her lungs. Bugs scattered from her chest, retreating into her gut.

The Crimson District was possibly the last place she wanted to visit right now. She didn't want to see the homeless children shivering on the streets. She didn't want to see Kotetsu or Izumo begging for spare change. She didn't want to see any of the women like her, the one's who didn't fit into Konoha's tidy little gender binary. Because if Shino saw them, she wouldn't be able to say a word without rousing Lee's suspicion. She would have to look away and keep walking, as if she felt nothing at all.

Lee continued rambling. "-but if you aren't comfortable, I can tell Tohru you weren't feeling well-"

"It's fine," Shino assured him. "I promised your mother-in-law I would go. I don't break promises if I can help it."

"Oh. Right." Lee seemed oddly resigned as he dropped the subject. The two of them walked in awkward silence. A gust of snow blew past them. Shino's ceremonial jacket did little to block the cold.

Shino molded her face into a stiff, neutral expression. Every Aburame learned how to make this face by the time they were four years old. It was easier to feel calm when one's body language was under control. And when an Aburame was calm, their bugs were calm.

Shino took a deep breath. The chilly air stung less this time. Her hive crawled through her body at a slower pace. 

There was no reason for her to be this anxious. Shino had fought through the end of the world; she could handle a conversation with an angry grandmother. All she had to do was get into character-

"Here it is." Lee pointed to an outlet store on the corner. The sign above the door read, "The Cabbage Patch." Snow piled on the windowsills, making it difficult to see inside.

Shino sighed. She'd forgotten they were getting dinner first. She dropped the stoic facade, reeling herself back into a more social persona. "What does this place sell exactly?"

"Oh, lots of things: seaweed wraps, kale salad, spinach smoothies…"

"But no cabbage?"

Lee grinned. "No, I think that is one of the few ingredients they don't have." He opened the door for Shino. A bell jingled above their heads.

The inside of the Cabbage Patch was rather dark. Most of the illumination came from the setting sun outside. Snow blocked the bottom halves of the windows, so Lee and Shino appeared to be wading in waist-high shadow.

The walls were the color of avocado. The rest of the café seemed to a mixture of wood and steel. There were six small tables by the windows. A bar in the back sported an ensemble of blenders and fruit.

No one else was in the room except a white-haired man at the back table. An apron hung from his hunched shoulders. He poked his chopsticks at a salad. Apparently one of the cooks had made himself an early dinner.

A chubby teenager burst out of the back kitchen. Her apron was neon pink. "Welcome to the Cabbage Patch! Believe it or not, you two are our very first couple of the day, which means you get our Valentine's Day Special!" A half-deflated heart balloon trailed behind her.

The old cook chuckled. "It's only Lee, Akemi. Him and, uh…who's your friend here, Lee?"

"Giichi, this is Shino Aburame. He's my son's teacher."

"Oh." The girl let go of the balloon. It drifted lazily back toward the kitchen. "Sorry. I only saw your silhouettes through the door. Your friend was wearing their hair in a loose bun like mine, and their jacket is kind of sparkly, so I assumed she - I mean he…" She glanced at Shino's face, then looked away. "Never mind."

A flush crept up Shino's neck. Her hive buzzed in her stomach. Shino wasn't sure if she was thrilled someone noticed or mortified that someone saw through her.

Shino had lived in Konoha for thirty years, and nobody outside her clan had ever suspected her real gender. Not her teachers, not her teammates, nobody. Even Mitsuki hadn't guessed until Shino let a hint slip. But this Akemi saw Shino for three seconds and figured it out?

Shino didn't sense much chakra from the girl, so she doubted any sensory jutsu was in play. She examined the embroidered beetles on her sleeves. Were her clothes that feminine? Nobody in the parent teacher meeting had said anything. And grey was a gender-neutral color, wasn't it?

Maybe this was a coincidence. Akemi had been waiting to greet a Valentine's Day couple, so her eyes had shown her what she'd wanted to see: a man and a woman out on a-

Wait. The girl thought Shino and Lee were a couple on a date. And now the two of them were going to eat dinner together, alone, with that misunderstanding hanging over their heads the entire time. Shino cringed. This night was going to be painfully awkward. She should have gone home while she had the chance.

"Has business been slow today?" asked Lee. He smiled comfortably, as if the last 60 seconds hadn't happened.

Akemi slumped on a barstool. "Business has been dead! I've been alone with Grandpa all day! This weather has scared everybody off."

Giichi eased himself out of the chair and joined his granddaughter at the bar. "I warned you this would happen. Nobody wants to eat health food on Valentine's Day. They're all visiting bakeries and five-star restaurants."

"I thought the firefighters would come. Or people like the Aburames," said Akemi, giving Shino a nod.

"What do you mean, people like us?" asked Shino.

Akemi swiveled in her chair. "You know, people who don't really do romance or marriage or stuff."

Giichi flicked Akemi in the forehead. "That was rude," he scolded.

"What? I didn't mean it in a bad way." She turned to Shino. "I just meant Aburames don't need Valentine's Day since you all have the cocoons."

Lee's fuzzy eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "Cocoons?"

Akemi nodded. "You know why Aburame all look alike? Because they're clones. They don't have any women to give birth, so when an Aburame wants to be a dad, he'll wrap himself up in a cocoon. He'll hibernate for a few months, and then when he wakes up, he'll have a little pod baby in his arms."

Shino was stunned. She'd heard a lot of strange theories about how Aburames procreated without women. One rumor said Aburames kidnapped orphans to raise as their own children. Another said they had sex with giant she-bugs. But this was the first time someone had claimed Shino was her father's clone.

Lee stared at Shino with wide eyes. "Is that true?"

"No," she answered firmly. "If Aburames had the ability to clone ourselves, there would be a lot more of us. We procreate the same way everyone else does."

Akemi tilted her head. "With who though? Do you go down to the Crimson District and hire a sex worker, or-"

"Akemi!" Giichi cried. "I am so sorry, Shino. My granddaughter often talks before she thinks."

The girl winced. "Sorry! I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just curious."

"I'm not offended. These are definitely some of the more creative theories I've heard." Her father would be very amused when Shino told him about the pod children. "Unfortunately, our practices are a clan secret, so I can't tell you any specifics."

"Not even a hint?" asked Akemi.

Giichi cut the conversation short. "Akemi, they didn't come here to gossip. They came here for food. Isn't that right, Lee?"

"Right! Of course!" Akemi scrambled to get a pen and paper. "What are you hungry for?"

"I'd like a curry bowl and a strawberry smoothie with double protein," said Lee.

Shino skimmed the menu above the bar. "I'll have a tofu bowl and some herbal tea, please."

"Right away!" Akemi sprinted to the kitchen, dragging the balloon behind her. Giichi told them to sit down anywhere they liked, then joined his granddaughter in the back.

Shino and Lee sat down in the corner. The table was meant for people shorter than Shino, so when she sat down, her knees bumped against Lee's. She nudged her chair back.

Lee's phone buzzed in his jacket again. He glanced at the screen. "It's Tenten," he explained. "I forgot to tell her I'm coming home late. Excuse me." His thumbs tapped out a text. He typed as quickly as Shino's students did.

Normally she would spend these awkward, pre-dinner moments staring out the window, but a pile of snow blocked her view. She tapped her fingers against her knee until Lee put away his phone.

"For the record, my family doesn't use sex workers either."

Lee laughed. "I knew _that_. Ritsu would have told me if you were regular visitors to the Crimson District."

"Oh?" Shino paused, thinking of a tactful way to phrase her next question. "Were you a regular visitor to the Crimson District?"

Lee nodded. "I would stop by to visit Ritsu whenever I didn't have missions. I probably went there two to three times a week. Ritsu said I was her most frequent customer."

Shino said nothing. It didn't matter to her if Lee had hired sex workers or not. Lee and Ritsu were both consenting adults. But Shino would be lying if she said she wasn't surprised.

"Ah!" Lee jumped in his chair as if he'd been stung. "When I say customer, I don't mean _that_ kind of customer! Ritsu lived in the district, but she wasn't – I didn't –" Lee's cheeks glowed pink. "It was just easier to have treatments there than at my apartment."

"Treatments?"

The blush spread to Lee's nose and ears. "Ritsu was an acupuncturist. Gai was her customer first, since he kept having nerve pain in his back. He recommended her to me after I injured my neck on a mission. Ritsu and I got to know each other during the sessions, and I started seeing her outside of treatment. But I only paid for the acupuncture! Really!"

He brought out his phone, furiously swiping through pictures. "Hold on, I'll show you proof."

"You don't have to, Lee. I already believe you."

"Here!" Lee presented a photo of himself and a very short woman. Ritsu had a stout, busty build with biceps to rival Sakura's. Her ponytail was long enough to skim the grass. She had sharp eyes like Metal's.

The couple stood in front of sleek sign advertising some sort of medical practice. Ritsu had a victorious fist in the air. Lee was making his classic "nice guy" pose.

"We took that photo after Ritsu got a new office in Amber district," Lee explained. "She was really good at her job, but it wasn't until she moved out of Crimson District that she got the recognition she deserved." His eyes grew warm with nostalgia. "I proposed to her the day after we took this photo."

Shino wished she had been in the village more when she was younger. She'd taken so many solo missions that she'd missed a lot of important moments like this. "You two look very happy together."

"We were." His mouth was smiling, but his eyes looked a little melancholy. "I miss her every day." He looked at the photo a moment, then put his phone away. "But I'm lucky. I have you and Gai and Tenten to help me raise Metal. I couldn't do it without you all."

Shino waved away his praise. "I'm only his teacher. I show children how to do algebra or throw kunai, but that's not the same thing as parenting them."

Lee frowned. "It still helps. Even before you became a teacher, you supported me a lot."

"I did?"

"After Ritsu died and I had my breakdown. Tenten said you babysat Metal at night while I was at therapy. Apparently you were the only one who could get him to sleep."

Shino let herself give a fraction of a smile. She hadn't realized Lee knew about that. "You can thank my bugs for that trick. When Aburames hold our own babies, we have the bugs hum at a certain frequency. The vibrations act like a white noise machine and drown out background noise."

"Oh! That explains the radio!"

"The radio?"

"Whenever I couldn't get Metal to sleep, I'd put a radio in his room and tune it to a broken channel. The static always put him to sleep, but I never understood why…"

Lee told Shino about his many trials with the insomniac baby. His face glowed as he talked. Shino felt herself relax a bit. After a day of dealing with dueling children and their angry parents, it was nice to talk with someone who didn't have an agenda. Lee was like a campfire in a snowstorm: warm and nonthreatening.

Shino could see why Sakura was attracted to him. With his sharp cheekbones and strong jaw, he could be handsome in a certain light. Well, maybe handsome wasn't the right word. Eyebrows as bushy as Lee's didn't belong in the 'handsome' category. But Lee's personality shone through every part of his body, eyebrows included, giving his face a second-hand charm it wouldn't otherwise have.

"Here's your order!" Akemi placed a cup of steaming tea before Shino.

The clink of the cup snapped Shino back to reality. Was she just checking out _Rock Lee_? While he was telling stories about his infant son? What was wrong with her?

Maybe that explosion had rattled her head more than she realized. That was the only reason she could think of for this massive lapse in self-control. Even in the heyday of her puberty, she'd never ogled Kiba like that. At least not while he was talking directly at her. Hopefully Shino's thoughts hadn't shown on her face.

Fortunately, Lee seemed too distracted by the food to notice Shino. Akemi set down the tofu and curry bowls. She presented Lee's drink last: a pink smoothie with chunks of unblended fruit. Lee took a sip. His eyes lit up. "Thank you, Akemi! This tastes delicious!"

The young girl grinned from ear to ear. "It better! I made it myself. Hold on, I have something else for you two."

Akemi rushed back to the kitchen and came out with two cupcakes. She presented both Shino and Lee with a plate. A heart of chocolate frosting spread across Shino's cupcake. Inside the frosting heart was an even smaller heart made of sprinkles.

Shino tensed. Had Akemi seen Shino admiring Lee? Was the girl mocking her? No, the girl's smile was too sincere. Perhaps she overheard their conversation and misunderstood something?

Giichi laughed from inside the kitchen. "Akemi, those desserts are for couples."

"But nobody else is here!" Akemi cried. "I didn't decorate three dozen cupcakes so they could go stale!"

"Three dozen?" Lee slapped the table. "She's right. These cupcakes look too good to go to waste. Why don't you sell me a dozen?"

Akemi squealed. "Really?"

Lee nodded. "I'm headed over to my mother-in-law's after this. I'm sure she will enjoy the treats."

"All right! I'll pack them up right away." Akemi ran back into the kitchen.

Shino let out the breath she'd been holding. It seemed she was being paranoid for nothing. She took a bite of her dinner. The tofu had been cooked in a mushroom sauce that gave it a hearty flavor. Shino was impressed. This café might not have the most tactful employees, but they definitely knew how to cook.

"My compliments to the chef," she murmured.

Lee swallowed some curry. His face grew flushed from the spice. "Giichi was a contestant on _Ninja Kitchen_ five years ago. His curry is the best!"

"I'll take your word for it. That curry looks too spicy for me."

"Oh right. Spicy food probably isn't good after a concussion." Lee grew concerned. "You're not in any pain, are you? Metal said you hit your head really hard."

She shook her head. "My visor absorbed most of the impact. Unfortunately it broke, so I'll have to spend 200,000 yen on a new one."

Lee cringed. "Can't you find a cheaper visor that looks similar?"

"I don't wear the visor for fashion's sake. I wear it so I can see a full range of colors." She tapped her sunglasses. "These make everything look brown."

"Oh, that's too bad!"

"It's better than not being able to see anything."

Lee sipped his drink. "Do you have vision problems?"

"Yes…" The answer seemed obvious to Shino, but then she remembered Akemi's conspiracy theory about the pod children. "Why did you think I wore glasses?"

Lee scratched his head. "Neji told me the Aburame clan has worn sunglasses for as long as you've been a part of Konoha. And the few times our teams had missions together, you always went to sleep with them on. My team assumed you were hiding a dojutsu as a trump card."

Shino relaxed. That theory wasn't so bad. "You're half right. My clan can see ultraviolet light. It's helpful for detecting chakra, but we get migraines if we look at it for too long." She took a sip of tea. "That ability isn't a trump card though. If anything, it makes my vision worse."

"So your clan doesn't have any rules against showing your eyes?"

She shook her head. "I let Team 8 see my eyes during our first overnight mission. Metal saw them too when my visor broke."

"What? You showed your eyes to my son, but you've never shown them to me?" Lee's voice took on a jealous whine. "That's not fair! I've known you longer."

Shino felt her neck getting hot again. "Well, you never asked to see them."

Lee leaned over the table. His face glowed with excitement. "But could I? Please?"

The heat rose up to Shino's ears. "They're not as interesting as you're expecting."

"That's okay! I want to see what you actually look like!"

Lee's face was entirely too close. Shino turned her head to the side. "Fine. If you insist." She slipped off her sunglasses. The world became slightly brighter. The avocado walls became cabbage green, and Lee's smoothie doubled in pinkness. Fortunately Shino's back was to the kitchen lights, so there was no ultraviolet to blur her vision.

She turned back to Lee, only to find he was even closer. He swayed slightly from side to side, catching her eyes at different angles. "Your eyes are so shiny! They're like quicksilver!"

The blush finally claimed Shino's cheeks. Her whole face felt warm. Kiba and Hinata had been surprised by their color too, but they hadn't been half this enthusiastic about it.

"You lied, Shino. These are a lot cooler than I was expecting." He grinned. "They suit you."

Lee was close enough that Shino could see the brown in his eyes. Normally they were so dark that the iris blended in with the pupil. Shino could also see dots on his chin where his five-o'clock shadow was coming in. She could see all of Lee in close, unfiltered clarity.

It was too much. Shino shoved her sunglasses on her face. The world snapped back to brown. "Lots of people have grey eyes, Lee."

Lee's grin flipped to a frown. He sat down in his chair. His look seemed almost…pitying? "You have a hard time taking compliments, don't you Shino?"

Shino felt guilty, but it was better to seem rude than to give herself away. Akemi had already called her gender into question once. Shino didn't need to feed that image more by blushing like a schoolgirl. Lee was a good person, but he was still an outsider. He wouldn't react well if he realized Shino was not the asexual man she pretended to be.

"I suppose I do."

Lee chuckled nervously. "Well, thanks for showing me anyway. Now I can brag to Tenten and Neji that I saw your eyes first."

Shino's smile was weak but sincere. "I'm glad I could help."

#

By the time Shino and Lee paid for their meal, the sun had disappeared underneath the horizon. Streetlamps carved circles of light out of the darkness. They walked alone on the snowy street.

Lee carried a plastic bin of cupcakes with both hands. He held the bin gently, as if the treats were made of glass. "At least I don't have to worry about the frosting melting," he joked.

Shino nodded. "In this weather, they'll stay refrigerator-fresh." The wind bit through her jacket. She repressed a shiver. "Are you sure your mother-in-law will be able to eat all those by herself?

Lee laughed. "I doubt it. She'll probably give some to her employees."

Ah. So Lady Nazari was a business owner. Maybe that was why she lived so close to Konoha's black market. "What does she sell?"

Lee opened his mouth, then paused. "She…she sells tea."

"A tea shop in the Crimson District," Shino echoed. The man was a terrible liar.

Lee looked away. "Yes. Though it's probably closed now, so I don't think I can show it to you."

"I see." Shino was surprised to find herself a little hurt that Lee didn't trust her. She couldn't blame him though. Every family had secrets.

They lapsed into silence. Shino's attention drifted to the streetlamps. Snowflakes appeared seemingly out of thin air as they passed in front of the light.

Without a conversation to distract her, Shino finally noticed her bugs skittering nervously around her ribs. Vague feelings prodded her mind: anxiety, caution, and…protectiveness?

Shino stopped walking. Someone was following them two blocks back, on the left side. They were suppressing their chakra, but Shino could still feel it pulsing in the air. She turned around, letting her hive swirl out of her sleeves.

Lee nearly dropped the cupcakes. "Shino? What's going on?"

It took her one, two, three seconds to find the chakra's source. A figure in a trenchcoat hid in the shadow of a billboard. They had a hood pulled down over their face, but Shino knew that mustache anywhere.

She called her hive back into her body. "Muta."

"Hello Shino. It's about time you noticed me."

"How long have you been spying on us?"

"Spying's a harsh word." Muta hopped down to the street level. "I prefer to call it observing."

Normally Shino appreciated her cousin's linguistic precision, but today his semantics annoyed her. "Have you been following me all day?"

"Oh goodness no. Ever since I gave you the glasses, I've been running errands for Lord Shibi and the elders. You aren't the only one who needed dry-cleaning delivered today." Muta adjusted his own sunglasses. "After I dropped off the last package, I was headed home when I happened to sense your chakra. I looked in the nearby stores, and what did I find? Our clan's heir having a private dinner with a man of conspicuous musculature." Muta raised his eyebrows in a teasing gesture.

Lee furrowed his brows in confusion. "A man of conspicu-what?"

Shino stopped breathing. What was it about Valentine's Day that destroyed everyone's critical thinking skills? She could understand the teenager in the café jumping to conclusions, but Muta was ANBU. He should have known better than to make assumptions, much less say them aloud.

A terrible thought struck Shino. What if Muta had "observed" her while she'd been admiring Lee's face? Lee might have missed her lapse in self control, but Muta would have caught it. And then for Shino to take her glasses off…and for Lee to lean in so close…the scene painted an inconvenient picture.

"Um, Shino?" asked Lee. "Who is this?"

"Muta. My nosy and tactless cousin," she answered. To Muta, she said, "This is Rock Lee, the _father_ of one of my students." She emphasized the word "father" as if it were evidence of how utterly platonic their dinner was.

"I'm Muta of the Aburame clan. Jonin rank."

Lee shuffled the cupcakes under one arm, then shook Muta's hand. "I'm Rock Lee. Jonin. No clan to speak of."

"That's fine. A companion's ability is more important than their blood." Muta squeezed Lee's hand, trapping him in the handshake. "So you have a child in Shino's class?"

Lee happily continued the handshake, oblivious to any power play. "Yes! His name's Metal. He's been in Shino's class for five years now."

"Interesting. Has the boy inherited your skill set or the mother's?"

"Mine. His mother was a civilian."

"Was?"

"She died in childbirth."

"So you're a widower." Muta's handshake relaxed slightly.

Shino frowned. "There's no need the for interrogation, Muta."

"If he wants to _associate_ with my baby cousin, he should get used to questions," Muta argued. To Lee, he asked, "How long have you personally known Shino?"

"We've known each other since the early days of our youth. We met in the chuunin exams."

"Oh, so you're a childhood friend." Muta turned to Shino. His mouth didn't physically smile, but Shino could hear the amusement in his voice. "You seem to have a thing for those."

Shino felt as if her blood had frozen into slush. Since when had Muta known about her crush on Kiba? Former crush that is, obviously she had moved on, but it was still highly concerning that her cousin _knew._ She had never breathed a word of her attraction to anyone. Had Muta detected her pheromones somehow? Or was he just that good at reading her face? Could the other Aburames read her this well? Was Shino just a walking beacon of emotional incontinence, broadcasting her every thought on her face?

"Oh, that shouldn't surprise you," said Lee. "Shino has lots of childhood friends. When you add Naruto and Shikamaru's teams, the 12 of us have all stayed fairly close since those exams." Lee chuckled. "I guess when a foreign nation invades your village, it's a bit of a bonding experience."

"But I know for a fact that Shino does not dine with all 12 of you."

"True. Most of the others are too busy running their clans to eat out like this." He paused, then added, "Not that Shino isn't busy too. Today was a special occasion."

"Oh, I'm sure." Muta tightened his grip on the still-going handshake. "How long have the two of you been eating dinner together?"

"We were in the cafe for about an hour."

"No, I mean-" Muta paused here, choosing his words carefully, "-how much have you _enjoyed_ of Shino's company so far?"

Shino instinctively covered her chest. "Not that much!" Did Muta honestly think she would go exposing her clan's secrets so easily? Even if she weren't an Aburame, she wouldn't be the sort of person who got intimate on a first date.

Lee's large eyebrows drooped. He looked like a puppy that Shino had just kicked. "Really? I thought we had fun at dinner."

"We did! I did. I mean-" Shino sighed. "Muta isn't asking about our dinner."

"What is he asking then?"

"I want to know if I should be worried about your plans with Shino tonight."

"You heard we were headed to the Crimson District," Lee said softly. Somehow his face looked even sadder than before. "I know that part of town doesn't have the best reputation, but there's not as much crime as you think. Most of the residents are good, kind people who have been…unlucky."

Lee's fingers unconsciously squeezed dents into the cupcake container. "Tohru – my mother-in-law – she's one of those unlucky people. She may be rough around the edges, but she's definitely someone you can trust."

Confusion seeped into Muta's voice. "Why are you visiting his mother-in-law, Shino?"

"Because Lee's son almost died in an explosion today, and as a grandmother, Lady Nozari is naturally concerned."

"Oh." Muta finally dropped the handshake. "This is another parent-teacher meeting."

"I told you Lee was a parent."

"I thought that was part of his introduction. I saw you take your glasses off, which happens about as often as a cicada resurfacing from the ground _."_ Her cousin huffed, ruffling his mustache. "Given the circumstances, I had to see how informed he was about our nature."

Lee turned to Shino. "You said there weren't any rules against showing your eyes."

"There aren't," said Muta. "But we are rather vulnerable without our glasses. Shino here is practically blind without them. Given the risk, we don't show our eyes to just anyone."

"Oh! I didn't realize your vision was that bad!" Without warning, Lee clasped Shino's right hand. His palm was surprisingly warm despite the chill. "I'm so sorry I pressured you into taking your glasses off! Can you forgive me, Shino?"

Muta raised an eyebrow at Lee's dramatic gesture. Shino's hive fluttered. She knew Lee only meant the best – he was this physical with everyone, not just her - but his tactile nature wasn't making the situation better.

Shino gently slipped her hand out of Lee's. "There's nothing to apologize for." She looked straight at Muta and said, "After all, we are friends."

Her cousin huffed, causing his mustache to ruffle. "Well you can't blame me for being confused."

She sighed. "Muta, I know the elders aren't thrilled that I spend so much time in the village, but I'm not careless. I would never do anything that put our clan at risk."

Muta stared at her. After a few seconds, he let out a lengthy sigh. "No, you wouldn't."

If Shino didn't know better, she would say her cousin sounded disappointed. But that didn't make any sense. That whole interrogation was to make sure Lee _didn't_ know about her clan's nature, right? Shouldn't it be a relief to know their relationship was platonic? Between this and their conversation at the Academy, Shino was half-convinced Muta _wanted_ the Aburame's secret to get out.

No. That wasn't fair. Muta had a rebellious side, to be sure. Wearing his wedding earring in public. Making off-color jokes. Even the outfits he dressed his youngest daughter in could be seen as risky. But Muta was also loyal to a fault. He would never put the clan at risk, Shino was sure.

Lee stepped forward and grabbed her cousin's hand. "I understand why you're worried. My family already caused your cousin to get injured once today. But I promise you, on honor and youth, that I won't let Shino get hurt a second time. If I fail, I will walk five laps around Konoha on my hands."

Muta frowned. "In the snow? That doesn't seem very feasible."

"You doubt me? Ten laps then!"

"Are you joking?"

Lee smiled. "Fifteen laps."

"Just let us go, Muta," said Shino. "Otherwise Lee will sign himself up for a whole day's worth of hand-walking."

"Would he actually?"

"Yes," Shino and Lee said in unison.

Muta made an amused hum. "All right. I'll let you two go then." He leapt up to the café rooftop, then to a slightly higher roof next door. Before he left them completely, he turned around and said, "Oh, but Lee?"

"Yes?"

"If something happens, I'm holding you to twenty laps."

The two of them watched Muta hop his way across the icy rooftops. When her cousin had disappeared, Lee turned to her and smiled. "That's the first time anyone ever raised the stakes on my own bet!"

"He's serious. He'll make you do it."

Her friend laughed. "Good! It's always nice to have someone hold you accountable to your training!"

Shino glanced at a nearby office building. An electronic sign informed her that it was 6:50pm. "Speaking of accountability, aren't we supposed to meet Lady Nozari in ten minutes?"

Lee saw the sign and cringed. "We should hurry! Nothing puts Tohru in a worse mood than late guests."

Shino followed Lee as he rushed through the snowy streets. She hoped they would make it on time, but seeing how the day had gone so far, they were pretty much doomed to be late.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you demoncow97, goldenthyme, kuscospoison, and Siadea for your comments! 
> 
> @Siadea - No, I'm actually not a teacher. I tried being a tutor/teacher's assistant a while back, and one of the kids I ran into assumed I was a transfer student because I was shorter than him. It is hard to get respect from students when they are all taller than you.


	4. An Unfriendly Welcome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience, everyone. I did not expect to go this long between updates. I couldn't find an appropriate place to leave a cliffhanger, so I ended up writing two chapters of material. But 7,000 words is a little much for one chapter, so I'll post two chapters at once so you aren't left in an awkward spot.

A nearby clock tower struck seven just as Shino and Lee reached the Crimson District. Lee groaned at the ringing bell.

"So much for making a good first impression," Shino muttered. She glanced at the dreary buildings around them, trying to figure out which one was their destination.

"You'll be fine! I'll tell her it's my own fault for talking so long with your cousin." Lee held up the cupcakes from the cafe. "Plus, Tohru can't get too mad if we bring gifts."

Lee slipped on a patch of ice. His body twisted this way and that, trying to keep himself upright. The cupcakes jostled in his grip. Shino sent her hive out to grab his collar, pulling him back to a standing position. Lee let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks!"

"You're welcome." With their duty done, Shino's bugs retreated into the warmth of her body. "Maybe we should slow down, for safety's sake."

Her friend laughed. "Right, right!" His sprint slowed into a walk.

Shino used their slower pace to get a closer look at their surroundings. Hundreds of footprints had stomped the snow down into a firm, icy path. The snow was a filthy brown. Damp food wrappers and soda cans spread across the street. The refuse lay in a strangely linear fashion, as if someone had deliberately poured the trash into miniature barriers.

Shino was relieved to see that she and Lee were the only people outside. Everyone else in the neighborhood had retreated indoors, taking their shops and stalls with them. At least, Shino assumed everyone was indoors. A lot of the windows had been smashed in, and she couldn't see any activity inside. The higher floors didn't have any lights on either. But her hive assured her there were people nearby.

As they drew closer to their destination, Lee seemed to grow more fidgety. He kept glancing back at Shino like he wanted to say something, then changing his mind. It took him nearly four tries before he finally said something. "Shino? Before I introduce you to Tohru, you should know that she, um…she doesn't like being stared at."

Shino nervously adjusted her glasses. "Do these make it look like I'm staring at people?"

"No, you're fine! I'm just warning you, don't comment on her appearance. Or her voice."

"Her voice?"

"Tohru's voice is a little raspy. She's sensitive about it, so please don't mention it." His voice was soft but insistent.

Shino frowned. Did Lee have that little faith in her social skills? Or had there been incidents in the past? It was hard to imagine anyone being so ill-mannered that they would insult their host's appearance. No, wait. That scenario was actually very easily to imagine, especially when Lee had friends like Kiba and Naruto.

"I promise Lady Nazari will get nothing from me but the upmost respect."

Shino's words seemed to soothe Lee's worries. They walked for another minute before he pointed to a squat apartment building on the corner. "Here we are!" The building was only 2 stories high but nearly half a block long. The door was painted crimson, a jolt of color trapped in an otherwise gray and lifeless place.

A plump, busty young woman opened the door. She wore a collared shirt and bow tie with some neatly pressed slacks. Her hair was shaved close to her scalp. Her bow tie, her hair, and her lipstick were all the same shade of violet. "You're late," she told Lee.

"Sorry Yui. We stopped to talk to one of Shino's cousins…"

While the woman listened to Lee, Shino instructed one of her bugs to sneak out of her body unseen. The bug landed on Yui's ankle, a sliver of skin between shoe and pant leg. He sucked a miniscule amount of chakra, then flew back to Shino. As soon as the bug was inside Shino's body, he released the chakra.

Chakra tended to have different textures depending on which jutsus one used most often. Yui's chakra rippled before dissolving, which meant the woman was either a water style user or a genjutsu user. The first was much more likely. Shino's old sensei Kurenai often complained that since the five great nations were at peace, espionage tools like genjutsu had fallen out of favor.

"Come on then. Lady Nazari is waiting in room 9." Yui left the doorway, allowing Shino and Lee space to move inside. Lee shut the door behind them.

Shino had only taken three steps forward when she was hit with a nauseating stench. It smelled like rotten milk dumped into a used toilet. She stopped in her tracks, clapping her hand over her mouth. "What is that smell?"

"This building can get a little musty in winter," Lee explained.

Musty was an understatement. Shino could hardly breathe.

The edge of Yui's mouth twitched up. She looked almost…smug? "You can hardly complain. When you normies in the city refuse to maintain our sewage pipes or repair our heating systems, things are going to smell funky."

Normies? Was that some kind of slang? It sounded like an insult, but Shino didn't feel like starting a fight, so she stayed quiet.

The three of them traveled down a dimly lit hall. The wallpaper had peeled away from the wall, revealing a grey underbelly. A large puddle stretched out from under one of the doors. Shino turned to Lee, who stared calmly ahead. How could he let his mother-in-law live in this sort of place?

Door #9 creaked when Yui opened it. Lee and Shino stepped through into the cramped room, but Yui did not join them. Instead she shut the door with an ominous _click._

Each wall in the room had a shelf full of candles. Tall candles, square candles, candles shaped like flowers. Their scents all melted together into a thick musk that masked the outside stench. All the light in the room came from the candles, so the corners of the room were hidden in shadow.

In front of Shino were two high-backed chairs with suspicious red stains. The chairs faced a large wooden desk, behind which sat a woman who could only be Lady Nazari.

The woman wore a pink kimono that far outclassed her surroundings. The fabric was decorated with a pattern of cranes. A golden obi obscured most of the woman's waist, giving her a flat, boxy figure.

Her face was also rather square, with a blunt chin and narrow cheeks. Her silver hair began in a widow's peak, combed straight back into a braid. To offset all these angles, Lady Nazari had painted on thick, swooping eyeliner that curled up into wings at the corners.

Those dark, dramatic eyes stared back at Shino. She remembered Lee's warning not to stare and turned her head away. Shino wasn't sure what she was supposed to avoid staring at. Lady Nazari wasn't pretty, but she was far from hideous. If the woman was disfigured in some way, Shino couldn't see it.

Lee was right about her voice being raspy though. "Sit down," Lady Nazari ordered. She looked at Shino. "I thought teachers were supposed to be punctual."

"That was my fault," said Lee. "I got distracted in a conversation and lost track of time. But I brought you some treats to make up for it!" He set the cupcakes on the desk, grinning widely. "Happy Valentines Day, Tohru!"

Lady Nazari's eyes widened with surprise. Her bony hand moved to open the container, then paused. She pushed the cupcakes away. "Now is not the time for snacks, Lee. This is a serious situation." She resumed glaring at Shino. "My precious grandson almost died today."

"That wasn't Shino's fault though-"

Lady Nazari held a hand up to Lee. Her fingernails were the same pink as her kimono. "Shh. I'm not talking to you, Lee. I'm talking with the teacher."

Shino's shoulders tensed instinctively. This woman had a rather intimidating aura.

The old woman steepled her hands together. "Aburame-sensei, as a member of one of the stronger clans, you likely have ties to some of your students' parents, correct?"

It was obvious that Lady Nazari was setting up a verbal trap of some kind. But Shino couldn't figure out what the trick was, so she answered honestly. "Yes. Many of my students are children of former colleagues."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Powerful colleagues?"

She took a sip of tasteless tea from a hot mug. The steam fogged her glasses. "I suppose."

"So I imagine you are reluctant to discipline those particular children. If one of them misbehaves, your old friends expect you to look the other way."

"No." She treated all her children equally, no matter what their lineage.

"Oh, so is this a normal occurrence in your class? Children set bombs and beasts on each other without any sort of supervision?"

Shino tried to answer, but her tongue felt heavy and thick. She took another sip of tea to stall for time. Her heartbeat increased its tempo. Why was her body panicking like this? She wasn't half this nervous in the parent-teacher conference.

Lady Nazari answered her own question. "Of course not. The school wouldn't employ you if you were that incompetent. But this hasn't been the first time the other kids have ganged up on Metal, has it? They probably started off with some nicknames, then escalated to pranks. But you didn't interfere with their fun. You think because Metal's different from other boys, he deserves to be the butt of everyone's joke."

Shino felt like she was forcing her voice out through water. Her words sounded soft and muffled. "This wasn't a bullying incident, Lady Nazari. It was an accident."

The old woman slammed the desk in front of her. "Don't lie to me! Lee might be naïve enough to believe you, but I'm no fool. Metal is always the victim of these 'coincidences.' "

Lady Nazari pointed at bony finger at Shino. "Daycares, playgrounds, it's always the same. My grandson gets attacked, and the adults who are supposed to protect him cower on the sidelines. You're all too afraid to discipline the rich brats for fear of angering their parents, so you let a child act as your scapegoat."

Shino tried to speak, but her voice got caught in her throat again. It felt as though an invisible hand were gagging her. She looked over at Lee, hoping he would intervene on her behalf again. But her friend stared glassy-eyed at his mother-in-law, showing no intention of speaking up.

Lady Nazari pushed herself out of her chair. Her voice curled into a low snarl. "But my grandson isn't some nobody orphan you can discard without consequence. He has Nazari blood running through his veins. And even though my clan has exiled me, I still have all my family's jutsus."

The woman made a ram sign. The candlewicks blazed behind her. The inch-high flames each rose half a foot, creating bars of fire all around the room. "I am just as willing to defend my grandchild as the other parents are. But unlike them, I won't complain to your principal. Oh no. If you let my Metal get hurt again, the school won't see you for _days_. My friends and I, we'll show you-"

Lady Nazari continued to threaten her in vividly creative ways. Shino told her bugs to be ready to defend her if Lady Nazari made a move to attack. Her bugs lazily gathered under her skin. Their minds were sluggish and confused. They didn't understand why Shino was afraid. It was almost as if-

Wait. Her hive's relaxed state. The strange smells. Her overwhelming panic that didn't match the situation. They all had one explanation.

"This is a genjutsu, isn't it?" Shino moved to set down her cup of tea, then realized it was probably fake. She let the cup drop to the floor, then made the release sign.

Chakra sparked through her fingertips. She blinked, and the room's appearance shifted. There were only a dozen candles in the room now, not a hundred. The candle flames were all tiny again. And it seemed that instead of two bloodstained chairs, Shino and Lee had been sitting together on a leather couch.

Lady Nazari stopped talking mid-word. Her cheeks flushed, as if Shino had caught her half-dressed. Shino stood up. She hadn't noticed when they were both sitting, but she was easily a foot taller than this woman.

Lee remained on the couch, staring absently into space. His hand hovered in front of his lips, pinching an invisible object. Shino touched his shoulder and gently pushed some chakra into him. Lee gasped. He looked around, then up at her. "Shino? Where did the tea go?"

"There is no tea, Lee. Your mother-in-law cast a genjutsu on us."

"Huh?" Lee turned to Lady Nazari, giving her a dazed, wide-eyed look.

Lady Nazari turned her head away. "That's not true. Yui is the one who cast it, not me," she said, as if ordering an employee to do the dirty work somehow made her innocent.

Shino heard footsteps rush down the hall. She opened the door. Wet footprints led from the door to some stairs. So Yui turned out to be a genjutsu user after all.

The hallway looked normal now – the wallpaper was fresh, and the floor was dry. Ink paintings decorated the spaces between doors. It looked like an apartment complex one would find anywhere in the city. The rotten egg smell had disappeared as well.

Shino closed the door. Behind her, Lee was beginning to get upset. "Tohru, how could you? We came all this way, and we brought you cupcakes!"

"Well someone had to take the teacher to task. It certainly wasn't going to be you!"

"There's nothing to take Shino to task for! Shino wasn't even in the room for most of the fight."

"Of course you'd say that," the old woman muttered. "You always forgive them. Even when your son almost dies-"

"But Metal didn't die, because _Shino_ ran in and saved him from the blast!"

"What?" Lady Nazari lifted her head. "You didn't mention that in your phone call."

"I shouldn't have had to!"

Lady Nazari's confident posture was quickly wilting. She made one last attempt to claim the higher ground. "Well it doesn't change the fact that Metal was attacked."

"Actually," said Shino, "the girls were fighting _over_ Metal, not with him."

The woman frowned. "What do you mean?"

"One of my students gave Metal a Valentine's Day chocolate," said Shino. "When the class president also gave him a gift, his admirer got jealous and challenged her to a duel. Metal got in the crossfire because he was trying to stop the fight."

Lady Nazari's expression fell blank with shock. She turned to Lee, who shrugged. "It seems Metal's pretty popular in this class."

"He's…popular?" She let out a low, raspy laugh, only to cover her mouth with a hand. When she removed her hand, the laughter was done, but a wry smile was still on the woman's face. "How times change. I suppose I owe you my gratitude, Aburame-sensei."

"And an apology," Lee quietly insisted.

"Yes, one of those too." Lady Nazari coughed delicately into her hand. "You must understand, Aburame-sensei, this is not the first time Metal's safety has been at risk. The Academy has let me down many times before. When I heard about today's incident, I assumed it was more of the same. Until now, Lee has convinced me to let him handle things." Her eyes locked onto Shino's. "But at my age, I only have so much patience."

Shino felt a jolt of pity for Metal. She'd assumed his shyness was temperamental. It hadn't occurred to her that his anxiety might have been bullied into him. Though it would explain why Metal had been transferred into her class midway through his second year.

"Lady Nazari, I assure you that none of my students have bullied Metal. If he's still getting harrassed by his old classmates, you should discuss it with Principal Iruka. He's very strict about bullying – I know he would be willing to help."

The old woman's smile turned from amused to bitter. "I doubt your principal would be willing to travel all the way out here."

"True. He is very busy. You would probably have to make the trip to him. But I could easily set up a meeting for you."

"That won't be necessary."

"It's no trouble."

"It would be trouble for me," she scoffed. "I prefer to meet people on my own turf. It's easier to control the situation that way."

Control? Shino crossed her arms. "Do you often do genjutsu demonstrations for your guests?"

Lady Nazari smirked. "Well, we keep the genjutsu on the hallway active. It wards off prying eyes. If the mold doesn't scare the intruders away, the smell usually does."

"Are thieves a big problem around here?" Shino had a hard time figuring out what they would steal. Other than Lady Nazari's kimono, everything here looked cheap and basic.

Lee frowned. "It's not thieves they have to worry about. It's the vi-" Lady Nazari shot him a look. He stumbled over his words. "V-vendors. Drug vendors," he corrected himself.

It was an obvious lie. These two were still hiding something. Shino skimmed her memory for clues.

Lady Nazari was scared of something. Scared enough that she posted a guard at the door and refused to leave the area. But it wasn't a criminal threat, because otherwise Lee would have called the police to investigate.

Unless Lady Nazari didn't want him to call the police? Lee mentioned earlier that she ran some sort of shop. Was it contraband of some sort?

Shino examined Lady Nazari for any hints. The woman stared defiantly back. Her expression was stoic, but Shino noticed her Adam's apple bob up and down in a nervous swallow. The lump was rather large, which explained why the woman's voice was so low and –

"Oh." The word popped out of Shino's mouth the same moment her brain lit up in realization. The old woman's dislike of staring...her exile from the Nazari clan...her reluctance to go outside the Crimson District...It all pointed to one conclusion.

Lady Nazari was a woman like Shino.

The old woman narrowed her eyes. In a low, sharp voice, she repeated, "Oh?"

"I mean, um..." Shino once again cursed her lack of grace with words. This was the first time she was meeting someone like this outside her clan. Surely she had something more eloquent to say.

Lee sensed the growing tension and stepped in. "You don't have to worry about vendors, Shino. They, um, they only target locals. Yui and the others are good guards, so-"

"Don't bother, Lee. Your friend's already figured out what you were going to say." Lady Nazari's voice hardened. "We defend ourselves against vigilantes. Families who want to fix us. Ex-lovers who want to hurt us. Strangers who harass us for a joke. " She raised her chin, staring Shino straight in the eye. "I protect my people against them all."

There were daggers in those words. But rather than come to Shino's defense, Lee was edging slowly toward his mother-in-law, as if she would be the one who soon needed protecting. He watched Shino with hopeful but worried eyes.

"I understand," she assured them.

Lady Nazari furrowed her brows together. "You understand?"

"As a teacher, my concern is my students, not their grandmothers. If one of Metal's guardians says she needs a genjutsu on her home to stay safe, it's not my place to argue otherwise."

Lee deflated as the tension left him. "You understand," he said, voice thick with relief.

Lady Nazari was slower to lower her guard. Using the right pronouns had allowed her to relax physically, but she still had an edge in her voice. "You won't report this?"

Shino's memory flashed back to Mitsuki in the forest, whispering about Orochimaru under his breath. "I'm not the sort of person who gossips about others' private lives."

"Is that right?" Lady Nazari gave Shino a full smile this time, without any restraint. "In that case – Shino was it?"

She nodded.

"Shino, you've had quite a long day. Would you let me treat you to some tea?"

She reflexively glanced at the room around her. The candle flames were still small and contained. "Real tea this time?"

"Yes. I have a shop downstairs. Green tea, white tea, oolong – we have any kind of tea you like."

Shino nodded. "I would like that very much."

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it seems like I spent a ton of time developing one OC, but Lady Nazari will offer Shino some important info/character development next chapter, so she's important.
> 
> Also, thank you everyone for the comments. I always get excited when I see one in my inbox.


	5. Real Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally finished this today, so forgive me if there are typos toward the end. 
> 
> Also, I use the word queer because I feel it is a valid and useful term for the LGBTQ+ community, but I know that some people hate it, so...be aware I use it once or twice.

"Well let's go downstairs then." Lady Nazari may have been old and gray, but her gait was surprisingly brisk. She walked out of the parlor, took an immediate right, and descended a dark stairwell. Shino and Lee found themselves rushing to keep up.

Lady Nazari opened the door, letting light spill into the stairwell. Shino walked into a large, brightly lit room. A plush carpet muffled their footsteps. The walls were the color of cream and held framed paintings of flowers. Flowers also decorated the shop's tables, perched in skinny vases of water.

Yui lounged behind a wooden bar, watching a large kettle as it steamed. She leaned against of set of shelves shaped like honeycombs. In each cubby sat a large jar of leaves, each labeled with tea's name.

The barista glanced up when she heard everyone walk in. When she saw Shino, she stood up and moved around the counter. "Boss-"

"It's fine. We came to an understanding." She nodded toward the kettle. "What are you making?"

Yui paused. "I was planning to use the batch of sencha tea we got from Land of Rice."

"Excellent. They always make high-quality tea. Give each of us a cup when the batch is ready." Lady Nazari eased herself into the nearest chair, careful not to stretch the fabric of her kimono as she moved.

Yui double-checked the kettle, then opened a nearby door. She leaned into the doorway and spoke to someone out of sight. A man's voice replied, "Oh really? He's here?"

The man appeared shortly after the voice. He was a tan, spiky-haired man with a bandage across his nose. He wore a waiter's outfit complete with bow tie and server's apron. He immediately walked up to Lee and patted him on the back. "Lee! I haven't seen you in weeks! I was starting to worry you'd forgotten us!"

Lee smiled broadly and gave the waiter a rib-cracking hug. "I missed you too! I wanted to visit earlier, but I've been on so many missions lately, I've hardly been in the village at all."

"Oh? Have you gotten any interesting assignments?"

As Lee and the waiter chatted, a second server entered the room with a tray of cups. Thick brown hair covered his right eye. He wiped Lady Nazari's table with a cloth, then set a saucer and empty teacup in front of her. "Here's your cup, Boss. And here's a cup for Lee, and a cup for-"

His gaze paused on Shino's face. It was clear he didn't know what to make of her. "For Lee's guest," the man said diplomatically.

Lee turned to include them in the conversation. "Izumo, this is Shino Aburame, Metal's teacher. Shino, these two are Izumo and Kotetsu. They run the shop with Yui."

Izumo and Kotetsu? The jonin who used to guard Konoha's gates? She hadn't recognized them individually, but now they were standing side by side...yes, it was definitely them.

It was a relief to see the pair was doing well. The last time she'd seen them, Kakashi was sending them off to "corrective therapy." Judging from the wedding bands on the mens' fingers, the brainwashing hadn't stuck.

Kotetsu squinted at her. "Shino Aburame. I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before."

"I was on a mission you led years ago. We were charged with recapturing some animals in the No-Hunting District."

Kotetsu snapped his fingers. "Right, the bug kid! You helped on the mission with the talking ostrich!" He looked Shino up and down, then grinned. "You've grown a lot since then."

Shino's neck grew warm as everyone stared at her. She suddenly noticed she was the tallest person in the room by several inches. "I may have hit a growth spurt," she muttered.

"Speaking of growth spurts, how is Metal doing?" asked Izumo.

Lee made two thumbs-up. "Fantastic! He got Valentine's chocolates from an admirer today!"

Kotetsu grinned widely. "Oh? Girl or boy?"

"A girl named Hako. She's from the Kuroi clan..."

The men huddled into a triangle as Lee recounted the day's gossip. Shino grabbed a seat next to Lady Nazari. She hadn't sat down for more than a few seconds when Yui approached the table. She tipped the kettle over Lady Nazari's cup, pouring a stream of bright green tea. "Here you are, Lady Nazari," she murmured.

Yui moved to pour Shino's cup. Her eyebrows scrunched together in concentration, filling Shino's cup to the brim. Steam rolled off the surface of the drink, warming Shino's face.

Now that Shino was in a properly lit room, she could see Yui's smooth, lineless face up close. She couldn't have been older than 18. Since the fall of the Uchiha clan, proficient genjutsu users were rare – young ones even more so. It was a shame Yui had to hide away here instead of putting her talents to use.

Yui saw Shino staring and turned her head away. "Aburame-sensei, about earlier..."

"It's fine. I know you were acting under orders."

"Still...sorry." Yui quickly poured Lee's drink and retreated to the bar.

Lady Nazari sipped her tea, showing no sign of guilt whatsoever. Shino drank her own tea, enjoying the crisp taste. They sat there in silence as Lee chattered away. Lady Nazari stared at Shino as if expecting her to start the conversation.

Shino searched her brain for something to say. "This is a very nice shop."

Apparently that was what Lady Nazari wanted to hear. The old woman glowed with pride. "Of course it is – I built it myself. I'm not going to waste my time running something shoddy." She set her empty teacup down on its saucer. "Just because the government assumes we live in squalor doesn't mean we actually have to live that way."

"How do you fund it?"

The old woman arched an eyebrow. "I sell tea, obviously. Even homeless people need to drink on occasion. They might not be able to afford rent, but most of them can spare a few yen for a cup."

"There's no way tea sales alone bought you that kimono."

"Well, I also have quite a bit of savings from my jonin days." Lady Nazari rubbed a silk sleeve between her fingertips. "I'm not as wealthy as I used to be, but I can afford to treat myself now and then."

"You were a jonin?"

"Until I started wearing kimonos in public, yes. I did search-and-rescue missions." She made a quick hand sign. A mix of fire and water chakra left her fingers in the form of steam. "Our clan's specialty may not be impressive to look at, but when someone gets a jet of scalding-hot air to the face, they go down quickly."

She smiled. "I suppose the same could be said of your clan's techniques."

Shino nodded. On their own, the bugs weren't much to look at. But with the right tactical guidance, a single hive could take down dozens of soldiers.

"I used to work with an Aburame sometimes, whenever my group needed a tracker," Lady Nazari said casually. "He was very dependable. He could be a scout, a fighter, a lookout – whatever the mission needed him to be." She took another sip of tea. "He and I had some interesting conversations back in the day."

Shino tried to think of any jonin in her family who could have been on Lady Nazari's team. Muta and Itsumi would have been too young. Her father was the right age, but he never did tracking missions. "Do you still talk with them?" she asked, hoping to hear a hint.

Lady Nazari's eyes saddened a bit. "No. I can't anymore."

"I doubt your attire would be an issue-"

"I can't because he's dead," she corrected. "One of our rescue missions went sour due to an ambush. When the first attacks hit, he managed to push the squad captain out of the way..." Her eyes went dark with the memory. "...but Akio wasn't quick enough to dodge the kunais himself."

Shino dropped her tea cup. This time, instead of dissolving into a the mist of genjutsu, it clattered loudly against the saucer. A flood of tea overflowed the small plate, soaking the surrounding tablecloth.

Lee and the others stopped talking behind her. "Shino? What's wrong?"

"Did you burn yourself, Aburame-sensei?"

"Kotetsu, go get a rag to soak that up."

The voices sounded too far away for Shino to focus on. Her attention was pinned to Lady Nazari. "Did you say Akio?"

The old woman flinched at the mess, but she didn't scold Shino. She seemed to recognize the urgency of Shino's question. "Yes..." She slowly set down her own cup. "I'm surprised you recognize the name. Akio died long before your generation was on the field. And he wasn't exactly famous."

Shino didn't need a legend to recognize her mother's old code name. It had been just a syllable away from her real name, Akie. To be honest, this was the last place she had expected to hear either name.

It had never occurred to Shino to seek out her mother's old teammates. Her father had emphasized that Akie's death had been no one's fault. There was no one to hold accountable. Even if there had been someone to blame, Shino wasn't legally connected to Akie, so any investigations on her part would have been cut short at the paperwork stage. So she'd contented herself with the sad tale her father had given her.

Shino hadn't realized there was more to the story. She'd assumed her mother died because pregnancy had weakened her. Now it seemed Akie had died saving another shinobi's life. Maybe Akie would have been quick enough to save herself too if she'd been at full strength. Maybe she would have died no matter what. The point was, there were other factors at play. Shino's birth wasn't the only reason she had died.

The hive became a whirlwind in Shino's chest. She could feel them pinging against her ribs like fragile hail stones. The tingling feeling spread through her shoulders to her elbows.

Lee put a warm hand on her shoulder. "Shino? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." The vibrations edged into her voice, giving her words an embarrassing buzz.

Lady Nazari frowned. "I didn't mean to offend you. When I said Akio wasn't famous, I meant no disrespect toward his abilities. Or toward the rest of your clan, for that matter."

Shino opened some of her chakra points in her calves. The bugs crawled out, grateful for more space to burn off their energy. She instructed them to stay under the cover of her pant legs so no one could see them.

Once there was less pressure in her torso, she spoke again, normally this time. "I'm not upset. I was simply surprised to hear that name."

"Does this Akio have a bad reputation in your clan?" asked Lee.

"No. They were a loyal shinobi, just like anyone else."

Lady Nazari steepled her fingers under her chin. She examined Shino with calculating eyes. "But you know about _that_ , don't you?"

Shino's anxiety ratcheted up once more. Exactly how much did this old woman know about the Aburame clan? "Know about what?"

"Shino, don't play dumb. The name Akio wouldn't mean anything to you if you didn't know."

"I know what I'm supposed to know. As an Aburame, what I need to hear is how much _you_ know."

Lady Nazari leaned back in her chair. For the first time tonight, her expression looked regretful. "I know enough to keep my mouth shut," she murmured. "I only mentioned him because you asked about my jonin days. I didn't mean anything deeper by it."

Shino could sense Lee and the others behind her, listening close. They would hear anything Lady Nazari told her. But Shino needed to know what information had leaked about the Aburame clan. "Just tell me what you've heard."

"I didn't hear anything. I saw it." Lady Nazari stared into the middle distance. "After Akio got wounded in the ambush, we fought the enemy off and set up camp. We weren't far from Konoha, so reinforcements arrived quickly. The head medic said Akio only had a short time left in this world."

"A man named Shibi Aburame had arrived with the medics. He said he was the new clan head and that he needed to perform last rites on Akio. We gave them both a tent for privacy and left them alone. We didn't question anything about it."

"I was assigned guard duty that night. Perhaps it was selfish of me, but I wanted to say goodbye to Akio, to thank him for his service. So I stopped by the tent..." She paused here, giving Shino space to cut the story short.

"Go on," said Shino.

"I opened the tent flap, but instead of a clan ritual, I found Shibi and Akio kissing each other. Quite intensely, in fact. I only watched for a few seconds, but even in that short moment, I could tell they were very much in love."

The old woman coughed. "I was the only one who saw, by the way. I distracted the other guard for the rest of the night, so he never had a chance to make it over there."

Shino sighed in relief. Only one person saw. And Lady Nazari didn't even see that much it seemed. She wouldn't be using male pronouns if she had deduced Akie's real sex. Yes, hearing their clan head's love life recounted before sympathetic strangers was awkward, but it was much less of an emergency than learning the whole Aburame clan was at risk of exposure.

Still, a lot of people would have turned her father in. Lady Nazari had saved the Aburame clan a lot of trouble by keeping her mouth shut. "Thank you. My clan owes you a debt."

Her host smiled. "Well, since you saved my grandson's life today, I think we both can consider our debts repaid."

"WAIT!" Kotetsu waved his hands in the air. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you two saying that Shibi Aburame, head of one of the four noble clans...is gay?"

Everyone turned to Shino. She paused. Technically her parents' relationship had been heterosexual, but she knew her father had courted one or two male lovers before that. "I think bisexual would be the more accurate term."

Izumo turned toward Lady Nazari. "Boss, why didn't you tell us?"

"Because it wasn't any of your business, that's why!"

Yui spoke up from behind the tea counter. The sharp irritation that the girl showed at the entrance was back in her voice. "It's kind of our business. A queer man is on the Council of Clan Heads, but he lets his brothers and sisters freeze out here in the Crimson District."

"And what exactly do you expect him to do?" asked Lady Nazari. "Tell the council his love story and hope it inspires them to undo generations' worth of prejudice?"

Yui crossed her arms. "If someone that influential spoke up, the Hokage would have to listen."

The old woman scoffed. "I was influential too, but my words didn't change anything." She looked Shino in the eye. "I don't blame anyone for taking measures to protect themselves."

Shino paused. Had Lady Nazari figured out her own secret? Or was Shino reading too much into her words?

After a moment's deliberation, Shino realized the answer didn't actually matter. Lady Nazari had already proven she respected others' privacy. Even if she suspected something, she was smart enough to hold her tongue. And since Lady Nazari was an unrecognized woman herself, she was unlikely to judge Shino for her anatomy.

Shino's hive slowed to a gentler pace. Her shoulders relaxed. Lee's hand shifted, and Shino realized her friend had been holding her shoulder for the last few minutes. She could feel the warmth of his palm through the fabric.

If Shino revealed her own secret right now, how would Lee react? He was comfortable around Lady Nazari, so he almost certainly wouldn't reject Shino outright. The others seemed understanding too. The mood here felt so warm and accepting, almost as if Shino was at home in the Aburame compound.

Shino felt an intoxicating urge to tell them everything. To say that _actually_ , Akio's name was Akie. _Actually,_ she was Shino's mother, not her father's gay lover. _Actually,_ Shino was a woman too.

Shino could practically feel the secrets in her throat pushing to get free. It would be so nice to let the mask drop and be _seen_ for once.

But...if Shino explained her own gender, she would be revealing the secret of all her fellow Aburames too. She couldn't expose them all without their consent. Even if telling the truth could get the clan some allies, this wasn't Shino's decision to make. So rather than spilling out her heart, Shino muttered a simple "Thank you for your discretion, Lady Nazari."

"I wish you wouldn't thank me for showing common decency. I'm not about to sabotage someone I barely know," said Lady Nazari. "Besides, if there's someone sympathetic to our community on the Council of Clan Heads, it's in all of our interests to keep him there."

"But he is getting up there in years," Kotetsu pointed out. "Will his heir be as sympathetic to us?"

"The Aburame don't judge people over petty personal details. We see no reason to interfere with others so long as they don't interfere with us."

Izumo covered his mouth. His wedding band glinted in the fluorescent light. "Oh? So does your whole clan know about Lord Shibi's relationship with this Akio?"

"It wasn't an affair, if that's what you're implying. Father's marriage was just as valid as yours is. The Hokage didn't know about it, but our clan absolutely did."

"Father?" Lady Nazari's eyes grew wide. Her eyes scanned Shino's face once more. "Wait, are you...Shibi's heir?"

Shino craned her head back to look at Lee. "You didn't tell her?"

Lee rubbed his neck sheepishly. "I didn't think Tohru needed to know."

"Of course I needed to know! I wouldn't have asked Yui to pull that stunt earlier if I'd known I was dealing with a clan heir!" Lady Nazari pinched the bridge of her nose. "Shino, forgive me. I wouldn't have gone into so much detail about Akio's death if I'd known you two were related."

"I'm not angry. If anything, I'm glad to hear the story from someone who was actually there. I never knew Akio died saving someone from an ambush. I'd always assumed they lost in a duel."

"Absolutely not. If it had been a fair fight, Akio would still be alive."

Shino felt a small bit of pride at hearing her mother's abilities acknowledged so openly. "So Akio was strong?"

"Extremely." Lady Nazari frowned, her painted lips pressing into a thin, pink line. "Your father never told you about Akio's missions?"

"He's not much of a talker."

"Well I am. Would you like to hear a happier story? One about Akio winning?"

Shino nodded.

Pink lips curled into a grin. "Well, our team was tracking down a diamond smuggler in the Land of Wind..."

#

One story led to another, until Lady Nazari spent nearly three hours talking about Shino's mother. Shino was completely entranced, forgetting about everyone else in the room until Lee's phone rang. When he answered the call, Shino heard Tenten shouting on the other line about how " _some of us have to wake up early tomorrow_ " and " _if you don't get back here by midnight, I'm never babysitting for you again._ "

Lady Nazari scolded Lee for being away from home so late, then shooed the two of them out the building. As the old woman closed the door, she told Shino to "stop by if you ever need some tea." The two of them were then locked outside in the cold.

Shino followed Lee through the dark streets, careful not to slip on the ice. When they reached a better-lit part of the city, she saw Lee's forehead creased in worry. Guilt gnawed at her gut. If she hadn't taken Lady Nazari's invitation to tea, Lee would have gotten home at a much more reasonable hour. "I'm sorry I kept you so late."

"You don't have anything to apologize for, Shino. This was my own fault for losing track of time."

"I imagine it would have been a lot easier to keep track of time if Lady Nazari and I had stayed on topic. We spent more time talking about Akio than we did about Metal."

"That's a good thing." Lee turned to look Shino in the eye. His dark eyes reflected the lamp light. In a surprisingly serious tone, he said, "I think you both needed that conversation."

That was true. For most of Shino's life, she'd heard more about her mother's death than her life. It was a relief to have that balance finally reversed. "Thank you, Lee. You're a very thoughtful friend."

Lee's voice flipped back to his normal, light-hearted tone. "No need to thank me! I enjoyed hearing Tohru's jonin stories too! I hadn't heard the one about the poison swamp before." They turned the corner onto a larger road. "As Gai likes to say: 'Youth paves the road of life, but the wisdom of elders are signposts.' "

"I haven't heard him say that one before."

"He only started saying it after his last birthday," Lee confided with a wink.

"That explains it."

The two of them walked in comfortable silence, snow crunching under their feet. A train whisked by on its tracks above the street. Lee and Shino slowed down to watch. The train wheels pushed snow off the tracks, causing snowflakes to float down in a rippling white curtain behind the last car.

"Speaking of elders," Lee said softly, "Do Kiba and Hinata know about your dad?"

"Absolutely not." Her teammates were kind people, but they weren't exactly trustworthy when it came to this subject. Kiba was the sort of man who laughed and said "no homo" when he hugged his friends. Hinata, meanwhile, couldn't even bring herself to say words like "transgender" or "homosexual." The few times the subject had come up in conversation, she'd blushed and danced around the issue with euphemisms. "They would not react well if they knew."

She thought Lee would lecture her on the importance of honesty and trust between friends, but instead he nodded in agreement. "That's fair. I'll watch what I say in front of them then."

"I appreciate that." Shino adjusted her sunglasses, which were slipping down her frigid nose. "Does your team know?

"Well, Gai does. He's the one who introduced me to Ritsu, so he knew about Tohru before I did."

Unsurprising. Shino couldn't imagine Lee ever keeping a secret from Gai-sensei. The world would end first.

"Tenten met Tohru once," Lee continued, "but she didn't figure out Tohru's secret like you did. She thinks Tohru is an average, everyday Grandma." He sighed. "Neji doesn't even know Tohru exists. The Hyuugas are too traditional. I truly think he would stop speaking to me if he found out Metal had family in the Crimson District."

Lee's breath clouded in front of his face. For a moment, Shino couldn't see his expression through the fog. "I'd always assumed you would be the same way, since your'e from a noble clan. I was shocked when you agreed to come with me tonight."

Shino was a little hurt to learn that had in fact mistrusted her. Then again, she had assumed he was biased as well. "I'm glad I got the chance to prove you wrong."

"Me too!" Lee's face escaped the cloud of his own breath. He was smiling with his whole face, radiating goodwill. "It's a relief to find someone else who understands."

Facing a grin like that, Shino couldn't help but smile back. "Yes. It truly is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, one more chapter to go. Well, I intend for it to be more of a fluffy epilogue than any continuation of plot, but I haven't written it yet, so who knows. The current plan is for the last entry to be fairly short.
> 
> I apologize for any Neji/Kiba/Tenten/Hinata fans who were hoping they would be woke. I tried to write them at various points in the spectrum of acceptance, ranging from Tenten's "live and let live" attitude to Neji's "burn the witch" indoctrination. Kiba and Hinata are more toward the middle, much closer to potential acceptance than rejection, but Shino has no way of knowing that right now. 
> 
> As always, comments are very appreciated.


	6. Epilogue: Mystery Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your great comments. They mean a lot to me.
> 
> Sorry for taking so long to get the epilogue up. Just like the rest of these chapters, it got a bit longer than I expected.
> 
> Mild content warning: I tried my best to avoid having others misgender Shino in this piece, but in this chapter pronouns were unavoidable. So if you are triggered by misgendering, you've been warned.

Shino knew her father was not an expressive man. Shibi Aburame was stoic even by his own clan's standards. He was a compassionate leader, to be sure, and a patient father too, but Shino had never once seen him make a full smile. The average person would not have been able to tell her father's current expression from his everyday face. But to Shino, who had known him her whole life, it was too easy to spot the twitching corners of his mouth or the faint smear of pink across his cheeks.

"So this Lady Nazari saw us kissing?" he murmured.

"That's what she said last night."

Her father leaned back in his armchair. He looked out the window at his snowy backyard. "How embarrassing."

Shino shifted in her own seat. "It didn't seem like she judged you for it. All she said was that the two of you looked very much in love."

Her father paused. When he next spoke, Shino could hear his hive buzzing through his voice. "That's even more embarrassing."

Shino couldn't help but be amused by her father's reaction. It had been years since she'd seen him caught off guard like this. It was nice to know she wasn't the only member of the clan who got flustered around the topic of romance.

"She doesn't know anything else about us," Shino assured him. "Just the kissing."

Her father turned his attention back inside the room. "Any information about us can be dangerous in the wrong hands."

"I highly doubt she and her employees would tell anyone. They wouldn't stand much to gain by making enemies of us." If they got the Aburames exiled, they'd have to share the Crimson District with an entire clan of angry shinobi.

"What about your friend? The one who doesn't live in the Crimson District."

"Lee is about as likely to turn you in to the Hokage as I am to turn over Lady Nazari." 

"Hm." Her father took a slow, quiet sip of his tea. In the light of the fireplace, his hair looked more gray than brown. "Well, I suppose there's little harm leaving things as they are then. So long as no one acts rashly, we can pretend this little incident never happened."

"Never happened?" Shino frowned at that phrasing. "So you're saying I shouldn't go back there?"

"Why would you?"

"I-" Shino paused. "I don't know."

"Do you want to visit that place again?"

Shino heard plenty of stories about her mother last night, so she didn't yearn to go back right away. But she didn't like the thought of being barred from there either. "Maybe."

Her father stared. His sunglasses reflected the red glow of the fireplace. "Well I suppose it's fine if you can be discreet about it."

"Really?"

"As clan leader, I don't see many benefits for a formal alliance. If our clan started patronizing Lady Nazari's shop en masse, it would attract unnecessary attention toward both parties. But a single representative making informal, private visits?" He took another sip of tea. "It could be a useful information-gathering opportunity if nothing else."

Shino made an amused huff. "Information-gathering opportunity" was her father's way of describing any activity that wasn't explicitly clan business, whether it be trying a new restaurant or going bug hunting on a summer day. "I'll report back if I hear anything useful," she promised.

#

As it happened, Shino was unable to visit the Crimson District during the following weeks. The month after her class's Valentine's Day incident was hectic beyond compare. Anko fell sick for two whole weeks due to food poisoning, so Shino had to teach her colleague's class alongside her own. Then she had the misfortune of being nominated to the field trip planning committee, which ate up her after-school time for another two weeks. By mid-March, Shino was getting through her days half-asleep.

That's why, when she entered the school on March 14th, she had no idea why the school was decorated in white and gold. Cardboard hearts had claimed each door, and balloons lined the ceiling above. As Shino walked down the halls, she groggily wondered if it was Headmaster Iruka's birthday.

In the teacher's lounge, Shino opened the overcrowded fridge and looked for some space to stuff her bento box into. She gently shifted a plastic-wrapped tray to make room on the bottom shelf. The tray held a cookie cake with white frosting letters. It was only when Shino read the cake's writing that she realized it was White Day.

She hadn't put any decorations in her classroom for today. Part of her felt guilty for celebrating the girls' holiday and neglecting the boys' day. On the other hand, after the headache the class subjected to Shino last month, they really couldn't blame her for being less festive this time around.

Shino closed the fridge and trudged to her classroom. Her class had transformation lessons this morning, which she was not looking forward to in the slightest. Even though Boruto hadn't said anything, she knew in her core that he was planning some mischief. It would probably be some kind of sexy-no-jutsu, just like the ones his father pulled on poor Iruka-sensei. Fortunately Shino had no risk of being aroused by nude teenage girls, but it was still going to be awkward.

She entered the classroom. To her pleasant surprise, most of her students were already in their seats, even though class wasn't going to start for another five minutes. She saw Boruto sitting backwards in his chair, chatting oh-so-innocently with Shikadai. Shino kept one eye on the prankster as she dropped her lesson notes on her desk. She was about to sit down when she noticed something strange.

There was a bouquet of flowers on her desk. The vase held a bundle of creamy white flowers, each barely larger than a fingernail. It was actually a very elegant arrangement, but Shino knew better than to take appearances at face value. She hadn't bought any decorations for White Day. The bouquet had to be a trick.

"Boruto, what are these?"

The boy turned around in his seat. He glanced at the flowers, then shrugged.

"They look like forget-me-nots," Inojin offered.

"Yes, but what are they for?" Shino asked Boruto. "Did you hide a smokebomb inside the leaves? Are some senbon going to fly out if I lean down to smell it?"

Boruto suddenly looked nervous. "No! If those flowers are sabotaged, I didn't do it."

"He's telling the truth, Sensei," said Sumire. "I was the first one in the classroom, and those flowers were already there when I came."

That didn't prove anything. Boruto could have snuck into the classroom last night and placed the flowers. Shino sent a few insects into the bouquet to investigate. They didn't find any stink bombs, but they did drag out a small card.

Shino brought the paper closer to her face. There was an explanatory message typed on the front, saying "Forget-me-not ( _Myosotis alpestris_ ): Symbolizing respect, connection, and promises kept." The writing inside the card was large and unnaturally neat.

_To Shino, my wonderful friend,_

_I told you I'd make sure you got a White Day present, didn't I? I bought these from one of your students doing the fundraising drive. I figured flowers were a good way to make sure you and your bugs could enjoy today's youthful celebration together!_

_I wanted to thank you again for all the help you gave me last month. I'm lucky to have someone as understanding as you to rely on. If you ever have any trouble, whether it's fighting in the PTA or just getting something off your chest, please call me. No matter what it is, I promise I'll do everything in my power to help. It's the least I could do after all you've done for me._

_Yours truly,_

_Lee_

Warmth spread through Shino's chest. She'd forgotten all about Lee's promise from Valentine's Day. But he had remembered. Not only that – he'd gotten her a White Day gift himself.

Shino's lips tugged into a smile. She had flowers. Real, live flowers with a vase and a card and everything. From a man, no less! She knew Lee only gave her the bouquet out of friendship, but still. The fact that someone gave her a gift at all was...unprecedented.

Shino could end up falling for this man if she wasn't careful. A flush of heat rose from her cheeks. She could fall for Lee far, far too easily if he kept this up.

"Sensei, are you okay? You're making a weird face," Inojin oh-so-politely informed her.

A curious Metal leaned forward on his desk. If he was in on his father's surprise, he was good at hiding it. "What does the card say?"

Shino tucked the card back in the vase. "The flowers were from the fundraiser. A friend bought them on my behalf."

Boruto sprang up from his seat. "We can sell our flowers to teachers? Nobody told us that!"

Sarada rolled her eyes. "Someone else bought them _for_ Shino-sensei, Boruto. If we sold them directly to the teachers, that'd be the same as making the school pay for our damage."

"Boruto, you of all people should have met your sales quota by now," Iwabe complained. "You’ve got the whole Hokage's staff to sell to."

"Psssh, I don't need the old man's help! I've sold most of my flowers anyway!"

"How?"

The class turned toward the quiet voice in the corner. Mitsuki fidgeted with a scroll in his lap. "How did you sell your flowers? I carry mine everywhere I go, but nobody will buy from me."

Boruto scratched his head. "I don't know. I smile and act friendly and stuff. It's not hard."

Sumire leaned over to join the conversation. "What do you say when people ask you about the flowers? Do you tell them it's for the school?"

"They don't ask me anything," Mitsuki answered miserably. "Yesterday I stood on the street holding flowers for an hour. People stared sometimes, but nobody talked to me."

The class groaned, much to Mitsuki's confusion. Shino resisted the urge to slap her forehead. She should have known the boy would need extra guidance for a project like this. "Mitsuki, when you sell items to people, you can't wait for them to come to you. They might not even know you're selling flowers. It's your job to approach them."

Mitsuki frowned. "I was already pretty close to people. It was a small street."

"No, I don't mean physically approach them. I mean...here, it'll make more sense if I show you." She approached the boy's desk and crouched down to eye level. "Ask me if I like flowers."

"Do you like flowers?"

"Yes, most people do. I've been meaning to get some flowers, but I don't know where I can buy them." She paused, waiting for Mitsuki to continue the roleplay. The boy stared blank-faced back at her.

Sarada sighed, then nudged Mitsuki with an elbow. "Tell sensei you sell flowers."

"I sell flowers."

"How convenient. How much do they cost?"

"Um...a single flower is 250 yen. A hairclip is 700 yen. The flower charms are 1,000 yen."

Shino took out her wallet and handed Mitsuki 1,000 yen. "I'll buy a flower charm."

His eyes widened in shock. "Wait, really? Or is this pretend?"

"Yes really. The money will help you catch up with the rest of your classmates." Thankfully none of the students cried "favoritism." They all understood by now that Mitsuki needed extra assistance sometimes.

Mitsuki undid the scroll in his lap and unsealed the charms section (She taught him how to do that!). A single bracelet popped into existence above the scroll. Braided green thread wrapped around a glass charm. Pressed inside the glass was a blue flower with delicate petals.

The bracelet was made for women with thinner wrists than Shino's, so the thread was a bit snug, but the boy managed to tie it on. The flower showed sharply against Shino's pale skin. "I gave you the green bracelet so it would match your jacket," he whispered.

Shino couldn't help but smile at that. "See, you're becoming a salesman already. Do that for the people on the street, and you'll make your quota in no time."

She stood up and walked back to her desk. "Now, back to business. I need everyone to take out their textbooks and turn to the chapter on disguises and transformation." Most of the students rummaged through their bags, but Shikadai sat still, watching her with the focus of a hawk.

"Shikadai? Don't tell me you left your textbook at home again."

"You're not going to actually wear jewelry in class, are you Sensei?" he responded. The frown looked unnaturally stiff on his face, and for a moment Shino saw a shadow of the boy's father in the expression. "I get it if Mitsuki doesn't know any better, but you should."

A strained smile snapped onto Mitsuki's face, directed at no one in particular. The other children glanced at Shino's wrist. Some of them began wearing frowns of their own, though their expressions were closer to confusion than disapproval, as if they just remembered that a man wearing flowers was strange.

This was just like the lesson back in summer with the swallowtail butterfly. One moment the children understood Shino's words, but then a careless comment pushed them back, drawing their parent's prejudices back into their vision.

"Why shouldn't I wear the bracelet? I bought it, didn't I?"

"But bracelets are for girls," Shikadai hissed. "Especially bracelets with flowers." His voice had an extra edge to it – the same tone strangers used when they realized Shino was full of insects. She knew on an intuitive level that she had lost Shikadai's respect. She had transitioned from "strange" to "queer" in his eyes.

Eight months ago, this knowledge would have devastated Shino. She would have immediately ripped off the bracelet, stumbling over excuses for her lapse in judgment. But eight months ago, Mitsuki wasn't relying on her to set a good example. Eight months ago, she let her students' opinions carry more weight than her own facts.

Shino took a long, deep breath, letting the air fill her lungs. She took her time letting it out, not caring if the pause was awkward. "Says who?"

Shikadai blinked a few times as he processed her response. "Says...everyone."

"Your father wears earrings. Those are jewelry."

"That's different! Those are a clan tradition! They represent our growth as ninja."

"And this bracelet represents my growth as a teacher. Specifically my ability to teach salesmanship." She nodded to Mitsuki. The boy dropped the false smile from his face and relaxed his shoulders.

Boruto laughed. "Sorry Sensei. No matter how you spin this, that bracelet's pretty _girly_."

"And what's wrong with girls?"

That was the magic question that shifted the mood back in Shino's favor. The girl students all turned to glare at Boruto. Hako manipulated her rabbit puppet to thwack the blond on the head. "Yes, Boruto, tell us. What's wrong with girls?"

"Nothing! I was just repeating what Shikadai said!"

Shikadai already had his hands up in surrender. "Not what I meant. Girls wearing girl stuff is fine. But guys wearing girl stuff..." He turned to Shino. "I mean, if somebody bought flowers for you, that's one thing. But buying them for yourself is weird."

Iwabe snorted into his sleeve. "Dude, Sensei's got two-pound laser-goggles on his head. He passed 'weird' a long time ago." He nodded to Shino. "No offense."

"You don't have to apologize for telling an obvious truth."

The class laughed.

Shikadai turned to Inojin and Sarada. "You two get my point, right?"

Inojin shrugged. "I do, but I don't care. If Sensei wants to shell out money for my mom's flowers, let him."

"Think of the big picture," Sarada told him. "The sooner everyone meets their sales quotas, the sooner we can train in a real gym again instead of that gross sand pit out back."

"Whatever." Shikadai crossed his arms. "It's not my fault if Principal Iruka scolds you," he said as a parting shot to Shino.

"I'll take that risk." Principal Iruka was so busy with paperwork that Shino doubted he would notice. Even if someone told on her, what would Iruka do? Scold her for supporting a fundraiser? Psychically divine her real gender from a handmade accessory?

Worst-case scenario, Shino would lose her job and be sent to the Crimson District, which was a much milder punishment than most people realized. There were many worse things in life than working in a tea shop. Kiba and Hinata probably wouldn't talk to her anymore, but she'd still get visits from Muta and Lee.

In fact, that life could actually be pretty nice. She could set up a few beehives to make honey for the tea. Wear a nice kimono as she served customers. Best of all, she'd never have to host another PTA meeting again.

Shino got a sharp impulse to drop the whole act right there and tell the class everything. The looks their faces would be priceless. But the impulse left as soon as it came, as Shino remembered that while some of her students could be brats, she did in fact enjoy teaching them. She didn't want to torch her career quite yet.

She looked down at her bracelet. The glass had frozen the flower in time, catching it in the middle of blooming. If she broke the glass and placed the plant in some water, would the petals continue to blossom? Or would it be stuck in that half-open state?

She could find out the answer later. For now, she had a class to teach. She took another deep breath, then announced, "All right class. Today we will be talking about the art of transformation..." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely don't know if I'll do a third arc in this AU or not. If I do, it would probably end up being much more Shino/Lee than Shino/Kiba, though Kiba would still show up. I make no promises though, because my life always has a bit of chaos to it and my divination skills are lacking, lol.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments are appreciated!


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